1869. ] HUXLEY—DINOSAURIA AND BIRDS. 13 
Next came the question of the nature of the so-called “ clavicle.” 
The determination of the structure of the shoulder-girdle threw 
open the homology of this bone, which clearly could not be a clavicle, 
whatever else it might be. The alternative position once more lay 
in the pelvis, and this time between the ischium and the pubis ; and 
as the ilium was bird-hke, might not the ischium, or pubis, be also 
expected to be ornithic in form? At any rate the bone answered 
remarkably well to the ischium of one of the Ratite. 
Resemblances to the structures found in some birds had already 
been noted by Prof. Owen* in the sacrum of the Dinosauria; but 
these specially ornithic peculiarities of the pelvic girdle had not been 
indicated by any anatomist, and opened up a very interesting field 
of inquiry. ‘To this I devoted all my disposable leisure during the 
winter of 1867-8, occupying myself chiefly with a critical examina- 
tion of the materials in the British Museum in order to ascertain 
how far the peculiarities of Megalosaurus were common to the 
Dinosauria in general. As I knew that Prof. Phillips had devoted a 
great deal of time and thought to the collection which he has done 
so much to form, I begged him to furnish me with a statement of 
the results at which he had arrived before my visit ; and in the com- 
mencement of 1868 he favoured me with the following letter :-— 
“ Oxford, Ist January, 1868. 
“My prar Houxtry.—lI must no longer delay to send you a notice 
of some specimens of Megalosaurian bones in this Museum, and of 
the doubts which frequent examination of them had raised in my 
mind touching the true composition of the skeleton. Since I had 
the opportunity of speaking to you on this matter, with the spe- 
cimens before us, you have made so much progress toward replacing 
doubts by decisions, that, in truth, there is little now to be said which 
can appear to you either new or important. Still it will be a plea- 
sure to me to recall the process by which I was led to form a quite 
different idea of Megalosawrus from that which I had derived from 
Cuvier and Buckland—the great early and skilful explorers in 
this field. When I came to reside in Oxford, and to handle the 
noble collection of Dr. Buckland, I was speedily satisfied that only 
two groups of reptilian bones were frequent at Stonesfield and in 
the contemporaneous (geologically speaking) Oolitic beds of the 
vicinity, viz. Megalosaurus and Teleosaurus. To these must be added, 
as usually of somewhat later date, Cetiosaurus of Owen, and, stall 
later, for the most part, Steneosaurus. Telcosaurus and Steneosaurus 
require scrutiny to be differentiated ; the bones of Cetiosawrus in 
this collection are more easily separated from those of Megalosaurus ; _ 
but there are not many homologous bones of these two reptiles in 
our collection, rich as it really is. I mention these things chiefly 
to satisfy you that, caceptis excipiendis, the large case which you 
* Prof. Owen evidently attached no weight to the fact as indicating any 
affinity of the Dinosawria with birds, as in his ‘ Report on British Fossil Rep- 
tiles,’ 1861, p. 102%, he says that ‘‘ the Reptilian type of structure makes the 
nearest approach to Mammals in the Dinosauria.” 
