778 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXIV. 
C, the 
, 
A, pigeon (Columba), after Baur; B, carnivorous dinosaur (Megalosaurus), after Cuvier; 
Fic. 1. — Ankle joint of dinosaurs and birds, tibiotarsus. 
same, back view; D, young ostrich (Struthio), after Baur; Æ, the same, from the side; 7, Ornithotarsus, from Baur, after Cope 
attributed to Cope and 
Huxley ; but it appears 
that Gegenbaur enjoys the 
priority ; for, in 1864 ('64), 
he pointed out that Comp- 
sognathus in the structure 
of its tarsus presents a 
transition stage between 
birds and reptiles, or a 
species of double relation- 
ship, which in fact per- 
vades the entire skeleton. 
Cope ('66, p. 317 ; '67, pp. 
234, 235 ; '69, p. 123) made 
a similar observation in 
Lælaps, the great carniv- 
orous Upper Cretaceous 
dinosaur, and considered 
the carnivorous dinosaurs 
in general as intermediate 
in position between rep- 
tiles and birds, adding to 
the list of avian characters 
the elongation of the ver- 
tebra of the neck and the 
very light construction of 
the arches of the skull. 
Unaware of Cope's ob- 
servations, Huxley's atten- 
tion was directed to the 
matter by Professor 
Phillips's collection of 
carnivorous dinosaur (Me- 
galosaurus) remains in the 
Oxford Museum; fresh 
from his memoir on the 
classification of birds, pub- 
lished in 1867, his eye was 
