ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 63 



Rich as are the spoils acquired at Bemissart, they are much ex- 

 ceeded by the vast quantities of vertebrate remains which for several 

 years past have been obtained in the United States of America from 



Pig. 18. — Shoulder -girdle of Iguanodon. 



«k?, the interclavicle ; cl, the clavicle; sc, tiie scapula; epc t the epicoracoid. 



Jurassic and newer rocks. Dr. Hayden wrote to me in December 

 that Prof. Cope had in the press an important volume illustrated by 

 200 plates, belonging to his quarto series, which he hoped would 

 appear in the spring. Prof. 0. C. Marsh's admirable monograph 

 " On the Toothed Birds " witnesses to the abundance and complete- 

 ness of preservation of the ornithic remains. The lithographic 

 illustration of this memoir cannot, I think, be excelled. The same 

 exquisite rendering is apparent in his figure of Ramphorhynchas 

 phyllurus, a Solenhofen Pterodactyle, in which the artist has suc- 

 ceeded wonderfully in reproducing the delicate marking and folds of 

 the wing-membranes. In the article on " The Wings of Ptero- 

 dactyles" which this figure illustrates, Prof. Marsh mentions that 

 the collections of Tale College contain 600 specimens of Cretaceous 

 Pterodactyles, nearly all of gigantic size, having a spread of wiDg 

 from 15 to 20 feet, toothless, and therefore belonging to the order 

 Pteranodonta, and e xhibiting the peculiarities of an anchylosis of 

 several of the thoracic vertebrae and synostosis of their spinous pro- 

 cesses, to which latter the suprascapulae are firmly joined, thus 

 repeating in the shoulder-girdle the sacrum and sacro-iliac union 



