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FOSSIL REPTILIA OF THE 



" Saurier mit Gliedmassen, ahnlicJt denen der schweren Landsaugethiere. 



" Megalosaurus, Buckland. 

 44 Iguanodon, Mantell. 



" Saurier mit FlugJiaut. 



" Pterodactylus, Ciwier" 



The artificiality of these lirnb-characters has been pointed out, and accepted by 

 the adoption, e.g., of the ordinal distinction of the Ichthyopterygia from the Sauro- 

 pterygia ; x also of the Labyrinthodontia? as represented by Mastodonsaurus and 

 Phytosaurus, from the 4 Vierzehige' = Crocodilia, Ow., 3 &c. Whether any apology be 

 necessary for the substitution of the latter term for a denned ordinal group including 

 half of the representatives of von Meyer's " (a) Vierzehige" I leave to the judgment of 

 unbiassed palaeontologists, and proceed to cite the more definite ascription of taxonomical 

 value to the groups above defined proposed by von Meyer, in his useful compilation called 

 4 Palseologiea/ 8vo, 1832. In this work the author prefixes to the class Beptilien (p. 101), 

 as to that of Mammalia (p. 44), his division of such classes into Orders. Those which 

 he adopts for the ' Reptilien ' are — 



"a. Chelonier. 



b. Saurier. 



c. Batrachier. 



d. Ophidier." 



This was the latest step in Palaeontological ordinal classification with which I had 

 to contrast the ideas of the Reptilian orders acquired during the researches of which 

 the results were condensed in my 'Reports to the British Association' of 1840 and 

 1841. 



Von Meyer's subdivision of the Saurian order is based, as in his previous sketch in 

 the 4 Isis,' upon the structure of the limbs : 



44 a. Saurier mit Zehen, ahnlich denen andern lebenden Sauriern und zwar I. Vier- 

 zehige. II. Fiinfzehige." 



1 " On the Orders of Fossil and Recent Reptilia." From the ' Report of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science' for 1859, 8vo, p. 159. 



2 lb., p. 158. 



3 lb., p. 164 ; and "Report on British Fossil Reptiles," op. cit. for 1841, 8 vo, p. 63. 



