756 J. W. HULKE ON ORNITHOPSIS. 
axis of the vertebral column. The accompanying diagram (fig. 4) 
from my notebook, May 26, 1873, shows the construction as seen 
in a centrum, broken across its middle, in Mr. Fox’s collection. 
Fig. 4.— Transverse Section of a large Trunk-centrum in the Collection 
of the Rev. W. Fox. 
c. Chamber. 
0, o. Lateral openings 
to chambers. 
nm. Neural canal. 
p. Partition. 
6. Buttress. 
In 1876, Prof. R. Owen described and figured, under the new 
name Bothriospondylus (B. magnus), the Brit. Mus. fossil No. 28632 
(the first of the two vertebral centra on which, in 1869, Mr, 
Seeley had founded Ornithopsis, and with which, as just mentioned, 
in 1870, I had identified Hucamerotus). The prior name, Ornithopsis, 
was rejected by Prof. Owen, substantially, as he is careful to ex- 
plain, because he deemed it misleading*. Since, however, Orni- 
thopsis (opts and ds) merely expresses bird-likeness, and in their 
peculiarly light construction, lateral openings, and large-cancellated 
tissue, the trunk-vertebree do exhibit such a likeness, I have not felt 
myself warranted in abandoning the prior name for the newer 
Bothriospondylus. 
The side and front view of this fine centrum (28632), in pl. viii. 
of Prof. R. Owen’s Monograph, give a good idea of the form and 
the position of the lateral opening into the side chamber, and of 
the general character of the cancellous tissue; but the artist has 
very imperfectly displayed the beautiful arrangement of the large 
cells at the circumference of the ball where this begins to rise from 
the non-articular surface of the centrum. Here the cells are of very 
considerable and uniform size, their form is prismatic, the base of 
the prism is outwards, the thin edge inwards, converging towards a 
central point, and the long axis is approximately parallel to the 
long axis of the centrum. Such definite arrangement has evidently 
reference to the direction of strains. 
The cervical vertebree were long a puzzle to Mr. Fox and to 
myself. As far back as 1865 he showed me a much crushed cer- 
vical centrum, which he informed me had been determined by an 
eminent paleontologist to be the basioccipital bone. Others were 
afterwards acquired by Mr. Fox, and one by myself, most of which, 
like that first obtained, showed great flattening of the under surface 
of the centrum and great elongation. One much mutilated and 
distorted centrum was so long that even so keen-sighted and ex- 
perienced a collector as Mr. Fox, deceived by its great length, 
passed it by several times in the cliff, thinking it was a log of the 
* Monogr. Mesoz. Rept. part ii. p. 24, pls. viii., ix. (Pal. Soe. vol. for 1876). 
