III RELATIONSHIP TO REPTILES 37 
arm were long and strong, the hand had three fingers, 
each bearing a large claw, and it and the ulna sup- 
ported a number of large feathers, which seem well 
suited for flight. The bill was short. The jaws were 
furnished with teeth, the upper one with many, the 
lower one with three on each side. 
Our first thoughts on looking at this creature might 
well be, “It must be a feathered lizard.” The long 
tail and the teeth at once suggest this. But there are 
many things which prove it to bea bird. (1) The three- 
fingered hand.1 True, the three metacarpals have 
not become fused, and the second and third digits are 
separate. Besides this, each of the fingers bears a 
big claw. But in many existing birds a claw is found 
on No. I, in a fair number on No. 2 as well, in the 
young Ostrich on all three. The third digit has not 
been reduced to a single phalanx. But this is no great 
barrier. In birds of our own day the final phalanx 
is often lost on digit 1. (2) The length and strength 
of the humerus and forearm remind one much of 
existing birds. (3) The acetabulum or socket of the 
thigh joint, seems to have been closed only with 
membrane. (4) Scales, not feathers, are found on all 
known lizards. 
There are some interesting points which, if rep- 
tilian, are also avian. The vertebrze seem to have 
1 Dr. Hurst (Watural Science, October, 1893) has boldly tried 
to show that archeopteryx had really more than three fingers, 
and that one or two with larger stronger bones have left no 
impression on the stone. But when even the delicate forms of 
the feathers are preserved, it is wonderful that there should be 
no trace of these bones-either in the Berlin Archzopteryx, or in 
the one at the British Museum. 
