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FOSSIL REPTILIA OF THE WEALDEN. 



embryonal character, and that the femora, humeri, and other bones became massive and 

 solid in the adult turtle. 1 The earlier stage seems to have been permanent in Poikilo- 

 pleuron and Bothriospondyhs. 



H. G. Seeley, Esq., F.G.S., the then able "Assistant to Professor Sedgwick in the 

 Woodwardian Museum, conceiving 2 that the cavities in the osseous tissue of the subjects 

 of Plates VII — IX had been filled with air, affirms them to have been " constructed after 

 the lightest and airiest plan, such as is only seen in Pterodactyles and Birds;" 3 also that 

 " the neck would appear to have been carried erect after the manner of birds finally, 

 concluding that " our animal is therefore clearly ornithic," 5 he concentrates these ideas 

 and stamps them for currency under the generic name Ornithopsts, for such supposed 

 stupendous volant vertebrate. With respect to which the judgment of competent 

 palaeontologists maybe exercised in considering the applicability thereto of the 'eleventh' 

 of the " Rules for Zoological and Botanical Nomenclature, authorised by Section d of the 

 British Association at Manchester," 'Reports of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science,' 8vo, for the year 1842. 6 



1 See 'Note,' p. 292, of Lyell's 'Principles of Geology,' vol. ii, ed. 1835. 



2 "On Ornithopsis, a gigantic animal of the Pterodactyle kind, from the Wealden," in 'Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History,' vol. v (4th series), 18/0, p. 2/9. 



3 lb., p. 280. 4 lb., ib. s Ib-; ib . 



6 "A name whose meaning is glaringly false may be changed" — " when it implies a false proposition 

 which is likely to propagate important errors." — Op. cit. 



