FOSSIL REPTILES. 327 



more numerous. No bird has less than nine. The palmi- 

 pedes, in particular, have from twelve to twenty-three, and in 

 this animal there are but six or seven. The vertebrae of the 

 back, on the other hand, would have been less numerous. 

 Here there are more than twenty. In birds they are from 

 seven to ten, or at most eleven. 



The teeth present the reptile character without any equivo- 

 cation. They are all simple, conical, and nearly alike among 

 themselves, as in the crocodiles, as in monitors, and other 

 lizards. The dolphins alone, among the mammifera, show 

 anything like this ; but that genus is out of the question 

 here. 



M. de Soemmering considered this animal as belonging to 

 the class Mammalia, and would range it in the neighbourhood 

 of the bats. He rested his opinion much on the variation of 

 numbers in the teeth of the bats. But it is certain that the 

 bats have never more than two forms of cheek teeth, neither 

 of which are at all applicable to the dentition of the ptero- 

 dactylus. 



In the side of the head which was preserved, there were 

 nineteen teeth below and eleven above, sixty in all : but some 

 had probably been lost from the upper jaw. What completes 

 the proof that these are reptile teeth is, that in the jaws, along 

 their bases, there are foramina, from which the teeth to replace 

 them must have issued. Similar are to be seen in the safe- 

 guards, and especially .in the dragon (dracona of M. de 

 Lacepede). 



The lower jaw is equally that of a reptile, having no salient 

 condyloid apophysis, nor coronoid prominence. The pango- 

 lins alone show some relations with this jaw ; but they have 

 no teeth. In the bats there is not the least approximation. 



It is the same with the enormous elongation of the muzzle. 

 The vespertilionidae have all short muzzles. The roussettes, 

 indeed, have it a little longer, but not beyond the proportions 

 of a dog or fox. 



