1869.] HUXLEY—DINOSAURIA AND BIRDS. - 15 
oval bone was called a coracoid. I pointed to an incomplete bone 
which you quickly decided to be humeral—rather a small bone as 
compared with the femur. 
“Turning now to the hinder extremity, it was easy to see that 
as the small glenoid cavity formed in the scapular and coracoidian 
bone was fitted for a small humerus, so the great hollow in the 
heavy, arched pelvic bone was adapted to the large head of the well- 
known femur, 3 feet long.. But to name this great pelvic bone was 
a difficulty with me. I was under the impression that its broad, 
smoothly expanded surface might be best compared with that of an 
ischium * or pubis, and that this would be more suited to the broad 
depressed body (as I supposed it to be) of such a huge creature, 
than, by accepting it as an ilium, to admit the beast to have been 
narrow in the rear, like a bird, with the plane of the bone not much 
inclined from the vertical. The only points in favour of its 
being possibly an illum were, first, its resemblance to that bone in 
birds, and specially in Apteryx (to which I confess I gave but little 
importance, as too unlikely to be accepted), and, secondly, marks 
apparently of bony attachment, on one face of the bone, such as 
might be left by the removal of cohering processes from the sacrum. 
To this I was reluctant to give weight for the same reason, viz. that 
it seemed to make Megalosaurus too ‘sib’ with primeeval birds. 
In this state of mind you found me, and, to my surprise, took up 
de novo, and resolutely, to compare the bone with the pelvic arrange- 
ment of Ostrich and its congenerst. You also then seized upon the 
so-called “clavicle,” and rapidly placed it in a probable manner to 
one of the tuberosities which project beyond the acetabular cavity, 
and called it an ischial or else a pubic bone, of struthious rather 
than lacertian analogy. Every observation which I have since 
been able to make goes to confirm this result, and the corollary from 
it, viz. a decided ornithic alliance of the pelvic, as we already found 
in the sternal, arrangement. Perhaps in the same direction may be 
cited the distinctly tubular character of the limb bones, which I 
haye not perceived as yet in Cetiosaurus, though it may perhaps be 
found to be the case, and I think it will be. 
*« As you are now engaged in working out the true affinities of this 
uncommon creature, I propose to send you careful drawings of our 
most characteristic specimens, and will now only request your atten- 
tion to one or two things which have occurred to my observation. 
«These are two forms of the great pelvic (ilial) bone—the well- 
* In his “ Report on British Reptiles” (British Association Reports, vol. 1. 
p. 109), Prof. Owen describes “‘ a subcompressed three-sided bone, flattened and 
slightly expanded at one end, thickened and more suddenly extended trans- 
versely at the opposite end, which formed part of a large cotyloid cavity,” as 
most likely an ischium. ‘“ Length 18 inches, breadth at the middle of the shaft 
5 inches, at its articular end 9 inches, the thickness of this end 4 inches.” Where 
is this bone preserved ? 
+ It appears that Buckland had suggested to Cuvier, but unsuccessfully, 
what now appears to be the right view ; for we read, “ Toutefois je ne puis guére 
douter que ce ne soit un coracoidien de Saurien: il ressemble beaucoup moins 
4 leur os des iles, auquel M. Buckland l’a comparé” (Oss. Foss. v. pl. 2, 
p- 346). 
