•372 MR. R. W. HOOLEY OX THE [June I913, 



18. On the Skeleton of Ormthodesmus laTwens; an Oenitho- 

 satjr from the Wealden Shales of Atiierfield (Isle of 

 Wight). By Begin ald Walter Hooley, F.G.S. (Bead 

 February 5th, 1913.) 



[Plates XXXVI-XL.] " 



Contents. 



Page 



I. Introduction 373 



II. Description of the Skeleton 374 



III. Mechanism of the Skull and Joints, and Movements 



of the Limbs 394 



IV. Morphology, and Comparisons with other Species... 398 

 V. Conclusions and Classification 410 



VI. Measurements in Millimetres 418 



I. Introduction. 



"The late Bev. W. D. Fox, of Brighstone (Isle of Wight), discovered 

 fin the Wealden Beds of Brook in that island many associated 

 ornithosaurian bones. These were acquired by the Trustees of 

 •the British Museum in 1882, when they purchased his important 

 collection. They are numbered B/176, and classified by Mr. B. 

 Lydekker 1 under Omithocheirus nobilis (Owen) as ' not improbably 

 belonging to this species.' 2 In 1888 the hinder portion of the 

 skull was shown by Mr. Lydekker to Mr. E. T. Newton, at the 

 time when the latter was preparing his paper on Scaphognaihus 

 purdoni; and Dr. Henry Woodward permitted it to be bisected 

 longitudinally, so that Mr. Newton was enabled to describe the 

 form of the brain. 3 No other reference appears to have been made 

 to the fossil until 1901, when the late Prof. H. G. Seeley referred 

 to it in his ' Dragons of the Air' (pp. 173-74), under the name of 

 Ornithodesmus latidens, and thus it became the type of that genus. 

 Judging from particulars there given, one would surmise that 

 a much greater portion of the skeleton once existed. At the 

 present time the hinder part of the cranium is the only moiety of 

 the skull to be found ; but Dr. A. Smith Woodward informs me that 

 "'he has heard a tradition that Fox had originally the jaws of this 

 specimen, and that, they were lost before the collection came into 

 the possession of the British Museum. 



I purpose giving details of the bones comprised in B.M. B/176 



1 ' Catal. Foss. Eept. & Amph. Brit. Mus.' pt. 1 (1888) p. .24 



2 According to Owen's determination, the type-specimen of Omithocheirus 

 iiobilis (Pterodactylus Owen) is a part of the second phalange of the wing- 

 finger, but one of the specimens to be reviewed proves it to belong to the 



■ central region of the shaft of the ulna. 



3 Phil. Trans. Eoy. Soc. 1S87 (1888) ser. B, vol. clxxix, pp. 510-11. 



