1885.] 
On the A vchceopteryx. 
471 
Mar X iar fami J y A of sauroid birds. In the same year 
Knf Archaeopteryx as the most reptile-like 
' d A h ?l considered that the earliest, most primitive, birds 
st be sought in the Palaeozoic formations. In 1882 
a r ! 6 succeeded in extricating the specimen from 
the slab of stone commenced his publications. He showed 
lat a mass which Vogt had taken for bone was merely a 
portion of the rock. Two years later appeared his first, 
purely objective, description of the animal, which he regards 
not as a connecting-link between reptile and bird, but as a 
tiue bird, which has advanced so far in its development that 
it can even be assigned to a particular division of the birds, 
— the Lannates. 
This result has been carefully worked out in the different 
parts of the skeleton. In the head we observe a feature 
peculiar to adult, recent birds, a coalescence of the 
frontal and parietal bones enclosing the skull. The cavitv 
of the skull is filled with calcareous spar. The brain, as in 
birds now living, lay chiefly behind the orbital apertures. 
Not until the author had laid bare a nostril of a long, ellip- 
tical form, with pointed ends, could he succeed in bringing 
the several bones of the skull into harmony with those of 
other birds. The uncovering of the toothed beak must be 
1 egarded as a master-piece of preparation. The series of 
teeth is laid free to the very point of the beak, and affords a 
beautiful view. _ There are twelve teeth of almost equal 
size, about 1 millimetre in length, cylindrical in shape, and 
becoming abruptly acuminate close below the point, the 
edge of which is turned inwards. The teeth are not fixed 
as m a groove, as in Hesperornis, but each in its especial 
S 0 C K Cta 
Not merely the entire head is bird-like, but the vertebral 
column, all the cervical and dorsal vertebra of which have 
been found as far as the atlas. Those joints which carry no 
ribs, or only short ones, are regarded as cervical. The neck, 
as Vogt remarked, agrees with that of a pigeon. Dames 
consideis that it comes to an end where the curvature of the 
veitebial column ceases, and where no more ribs are visible. 
If this is con ebb the Archaeopteryx has twelve dorsal ver- 
tebras, which, except the last, carry ribs. One of the most 
peculiar phenomena in this species are the fine, delicate, 
points of the ribs, which Vogt compares with a surgical 
needle. 
Dames has also succeeded in laying bare the shoulder- 
bones. Vogt regarded a smooth brownish mass of stone as 
the coracoid and the sternum, and drew premature conclu- 
