252 THE ANATOMY OF VEETEBEATED ANIMALS. 



which it is traversed, and the tubercular process becomes 

 longer than it. (See Fig. 5, p. 15.) The terminal cartilage is 

 united with the sternum by a sternal rib, which may be- 

 come more or less completely converted into a cartilage 

 bone, and is articulated with the vertebral rib. 



In the twelfth vertebra a sudden change in the character 

 of the transverse processes takes place. There is no longer 

 a capitular, distinct from a tubercular, process, but one 

 long " transverse process " takes the place of both. A sort 

 of step in the base of this process bears the capitulum 

 of the rib, and answers to the capitvilar process of the cer- 

 vical vertebrae, while the outer end of the process articulates 

 with the tuberciilum of the rib, and represents the tubercular 

 process. The neurocentral suture, in this and the succeed- 

 ing dorsal vei-tebrae, lies below the root of the transverse 

 process, which, therefore, is wholly a product of the neiu-al 

 arch. Neither the capitular processes, nor that part of the 

 dorsal transverse process which represents them, have dis- 

 tinct centres of ossification.* 



In the succeeding dorsal vertebros the " step " of the 

 transverse process gradually moves outwards, until at length 

 it becomes confotmded with the tubercular facet, and a cor- 

 x'esponding change takes place in the proximal ends of the 

 ribs, in the hindermost of which the distinction between 

 capitulum and tuberculum is lost. 



The Ivimbar vertebrae have long transverse processes which 

 arise from the neural ai'ches, i.e., above the neurocentral 

 suture. 



The centra of the two sacral vertebrae have their applied 

 and firmly united faces flat, their free faces concave ; conse- 

 quently, the first has the anterior face concave and the 

 posterior fiat, while the second has the anterior surface flat 

 and the posterior concave. Each sacral vertebra has a 

 strong rib expanded at its distal end ; and wedged in, at its 



* Thus, if it be a part of the part of the definition of a " para- 

 definition of a '■'■ parupopkysls" pophysis " that it arises from the 

 that it is antogenous, there are centrum, the dorsal vertebrae of 

 no parapophyses in the vertebrfe the CrocodiUa have no parapo- 

 of the CrocodiUa ; and, if it be physes. 



