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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol.XLIV 



The axis of the proximal end of the humerus in Varanus 

 lies in a plane differing as much as forty-five degrees 

 from the plane of the axis at the distal end. This is not 

 true in the ease of the sauropod dinosaurs. The limbs 

 were intended to bear a burden placed mainly above, and 



their structure seems to plainly indicate this. It is in 

 short impossible to articulate the limbs in such a position 

 as to impart to the animal a crawling attitude. We have 

 experimented a score of times and have tried different 

 poses, only to come back again to the position which we 

 have given to the reproduction of Diplodocus and which 

 is the position that has generally been accepted by osteol- 

 ogists as the correct position for such animals when 

 standing or moving forward. Our reproductions may 

 be, as they have been contemptuously styled by Hay, 

 "light-legged and straight-legged," but no one who 

 has had the matter practically in hand has yet been ab 

 to suggest any way of escaping the conclusion that th 

 creatures were at all events more or less "straig 



