SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
179 
it. According to Prof. Vogt’s account of it, it is nearly complete, and its 
wings are unfolded as if in flight. The head is small. Implanted in the 
upper jaw two small conical teeth may he detected with a len3. Eight 
cylindrical cervical vertebrae, furnished with very fine rifo3 directed back- 
wards, were counted. The dorsal vertebrae appear to be ten in number, 
thick and short, and destitute of spinous processes. Their ribs are slender, 
curved, and pointed at the end ; they show no flattening, nor are there any 
traces of the uncinate processes which in most birds spring from the posterior 
margin of each rib and rest against the succeeding one. There are also very 
fine sternal ribs, which appear to be attached to a lin3ar abdominal sternum. 
The pelvis is still enclosed in the matrix. The tail is very long, and agrees 
with that of the first known specimen. The hindlimb3 are hardly so perfect 
as in Prof. Owen’s example, but they show with certainty that the fibula is 
completely united to the tibia, and only marked off by a not very strong 
longitudinal furrow. The anterior limbs, on the contrary, are more perfect 
than in the original example. M. Vogt thinks that two scapulae are recog- 
nizable, and that there is no bone representing the furculum. The two 
coracoids seem to be in contact in the median line, and the sternum is 
reduced to zero. The bones of the arm present no features peculiar to reptiles 
or to birds ; they have been already well described by Prof. Owen. But the 
bones of the hand in the new specimen show characters not previously known. 
The carpus shows only one small globular bone. The digits are well pre- 
served in both limbs ; and from the information now obtained it appears that 
the hand of the Archceopteryx cannot be compared to that of a bird, or to that 
of a pterodactyle, but only to that of a tridactyle lizard. There are three 
long, slender digits, armed with curved and sharp-edged claws. The thumb 
is the shortest, and is composed of a short metacarpal, a long phalange, and 
the ungual phalange. The other two digits consist of a metacarpal and of 
three phalanges. The wing-feathers were attached to the cubital margin of 
the fore-arm and hand, but no special adaptation of the skeleton to this 
purpose can be observed The thumb was free, like the other two digits, 
and did not support awinglet. Thus, if the feathers had not been preserved 
no one could have suspected from the examination of the skeleton that the 
animal had been furnished with wings. 
Prof. Vogt sums up the information we now possess as to the organiza- 
tion of Archceoptei'yx , with special reference to the question of its systematic 
position. The head, neck, thorax and ribs, tail, shoulder girdle, and the 
whole anterior limb, are clearly constructed as in Reptiles ; the pelvis has 
probably more relation to that of Reptiles than to that of Birds ; the posterior 
limb is that of a Bird. The reptilian homologies certainly preponderate in 
the skeleton. There remain the feathers ; these are unmistakably birds’ 
feathers, with a median rhachis and with perfectly formed barbules. The 
new slab shows all the feathers in their place. The remiges, as already 
stated, are attached to the cubital margin of the arm and hand ; they are 
covered for almost half their length with a fine filiform down ; none of them 
project beyond the others, and the wing is rounded in outline, like that of a 
common fowl. There are thought to be indications at the base of the neck 
of a collar like that of the condor. The tibia was covered throughout with 
feathers, so that the leg of the Archceopteryx must have presented an external 
