2G2 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol.XLIV 



character of the animal, Tornier proceeds thereafter to 

 speak of the Diplodocus as a lacertilian — ' 1 ein Eidechse. ' ' 

 There are reptiles and reptiles. Having assured him- 

 self of the truly reptilian character of the animal, it was 

 a bold step for him immediately to transfer the creature 

 from the order Dinosauria, and evidently with the skele- 

 ton of a V aranus and a Chameleon before him, to proceed 

 with the help of a pencil, the powerful tool of the closet- 

 naturalist, to reconstruct the skeleton upon the study of 

 which two generations of American paleontologists have 

 expended considerable time and labor, and squeeze the 

 animal into the form which his brilliantly illuminated 

 imagination suggested. The fact that the dinosauria 

 differ radically from existing reptiles in a multitude of 

 important structural points seems not to have greatly 

 impressed itself upon the mind of this astute critic. He 

 intimates that the pelvis of Diplodocus is distinctly 

 lacertilian. He states that the great trochanter of the 

 femur, which he does not designate as such, articulated 



with the ischial peduncle, and takes care to show the 

 point of union by means of a lettered diagram, which I 

 herewith reproduce (Fig. 2). He takes pains to show 

 that (e) the great trochanter, articulates with (c) the 



