XI. — On the Discovery of a New Species of Pterodactyle in the Lias at 



Jjyme Regis. 



By the Rev. W. BUCKLAND, D.D. V.P.G.S., P.R.S. F.L.S. 



PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 



&C. &C. &C. 



[Read Feb. 6th, 1829.} 



IN the same blue lias formation at Lyme Regis, in which so many speci- 

 mens of Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus have been discovered by Miss Mary 

 Anning-, she has recently found the skeleton of an unknown species of that 

 most rare and curious of all reptiles, the Pterodactyle, an extinct genus, which 

 has yet been recognized only in the upper Jura limestone beds of Aichstedt 

 and Solenhofen, in the lithographic stone, which is nearly coeval with the 

 chalk of England. 



The history of the only two perfect specimens that have yet been found of 

 this most anomalous genus of extinct reptiles, is familiar to all geologists from 

 the minute and detailed descriptions which Cuvier has given of them : and the 

 Pterodacti/lus longirostris and Pterodactjjlus brevirostris are pronounced by 

 him to be incontestably the most extraordinary of all the extinct animals which 

 have come under his consideration ; and such as, if we saw them restored to 

 life, would appear most strange and most dissimilar to any thing that now 

 exists. "Cesontde tons les etres dont ce livre nous revele I'ancienne ex- 

 istence, les plus extraordinaires, et ceux qui, si on les voyait vivans, paroitroient 

 les plus etrangers a toute la nature actuelle*." 



In size and general form and in the disposition and character of its wings, 

 this fossil genus, according to Cuvier, somewhat resembled our modern bats 

 and vampyres, but had its beak elongated like the bill of a woodcock, and 

 armed with teeth like the snout of a crocodile; its vertebrse, ribs, pelvis, legs, 

 and feet, resembled those of a lizard ; its three anterior fingers terminated in 

 long hooked claws like that on the fore-finger of the bat ; and over its body was 

 a covering, neither composed of feathers as in the bird, nor of hair as in the 

 bat, but of scaly armour like that of an Iguana ; — in short, a monster resem- 



* Cuv. vol. V. Part II. p. 379. 



VOL. III. SECOND SERIES. 2 F 



