ae PROCEEDINGS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. PART XIX. 1851. PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY ; SOLD AT THEIR HOUSE IN HANOVER SQUARE, AND BY MESSRS. LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER ROW. oe | QOVIGATIONT es ‘ uwr Le ¥TS 02 4 A! 1005008 ; J « ‘MOGMOI IO tA: THAT Seer LIST CONTRIBUTORS, With References to the several Articles contributed by each. ApAms, ARTHUR, Esq., R.N., F.L.S. &e. Catalogue of the Species of Hmarginula, a Genus of Gasteropodous Mollusca, belonging to the Family Fissurel- Y sac hl lidze, in the Collection of H. Cuming, Esq. 82 Catalogue of the Species of Nassa, a Genus of Gantebage- dous Mollusca, belonging to the Family Buccinidz, in the Collection of H. Cuming, Esq.; with the Description of some New Species . . . : . - 94 Descriptions of Fifty-two Ne Species of thé cate Mira: from the Cumingian Collection . . « £32 Contributions towards a Monograph of nee Touche. a Family of Gasteropodous Mollusca . . 150 A Monograph of Scutus, a Genus of Ciaeuedte Mol- lusca, belonging to the Family Fissurellide . oh ta ree oe A Monograph of the Genus Monoptygma of Lea . - 222 Descriptions of New Shells from the Cumingian Collection 224 Note on the Genus Nematura. - 225 A Monograph of the Recent Species of Birds a Gene of Mollusca, belonging to the Family Fissurellide . - 226 A Monograph of Puncturella, a Genus of Gasteropodous Mollusca, belonging to the Family Fissurellide . - 227 Descriptions of Sixteen New Species of Rissoina, a Genus of Marine ails Mollusks, from the Cumingian Collection . . . owns - « 264 Descriptions of sever ral Rev. epee of Murex, Hiisoiedl, Planazis, and Hulima, from the Cumingian Collection . . 267 iv Apams, ARTHUR, Esq., R.N., F.L.S. &e. page Descriptions of New Species of Eulima, Triphoris, &c., from the Collection of H. Cuming, Esq. - . - - + + ~ 276 Bartvett, Mr. A. D. On some Bones of Didus . . . . «© «© «© «© « © « 280 Bonaparte, Prince CHARLES LUCIEN. On the largest known Species of Phaleridine Bird. . . 201 Bonyan, Dr. G. R. Notes on the Raptorial Birds of British Guiana. . . . 53 BowerBank, J. S., Esq., F.R.S. &c. On the Prerodactyles of the Chalk Formation . . . . 14 Davy, Dr., F.R.S. &e. Observations on the Eye of the Mole. (Ina Letter to WioSpence) Eeqsai\FsRs8.)0. to soleil of le cupelpss! 129 Ditiwyn, L. LLewetyn, Esq., F.G.S. &c. On an undescribed Species of Megapodius . . . . . 118 Dueuip, Dr. Letter on the Deal Fish. (Communicated by Mr. Yarrell.) 116 Forbes, Prof. Epwarp, F.R.S. &e. On a Species of 47quorea inhabiting the British Seas. . 272 Gasxoln, J. S., Esq. Descriptions of Twenty Species of Columbelle, and One Specresor Cyprned see sn “ets Te sy ee nl tone Gow tp, Joun, Esq., F.R.S. &e. On a new and most remarkable form in Ornithology . . 1 Letter from J. W.G. Spicer, Esq., concerning Two Hybrid Birds. . . otk sivate Me As ee On a New Siaiseias of Mimofibagh wits sen lial tie On a New Species of the Genus Montifringilla goites Ite Ae 1 On some New Species of Trochilide . .... . -115 Remarks on the Genus Hapalotis . . . Jno 126 Descriptions of Two New Species: of hdadendliis of the Genus Antechinus . . . Molen oot . 284 Descriptions of a New Spates ‘of Prilotis, bral a Now Spee cies of Eepsahttria) uss) ods oivl.ow hen bog amano Gray, J. E., Esq., F.R.S. &e. Descriptions of Two New Genera aud some New Species of Scutellide and Echinolampide, in the Collection of the British Museum . . om Ka. ans Description of a New Genus sat Patil of Gulodatian (HEE « 34 Lizards from Para 38 Description of a New Spedibs of BURinils ffi Callao, collected by Erneste Denicke. - 92 Description of a New Genus of Gbrgnidial. - 124 Description of a New Genus of Bivalve Shells, and a Sea Egg, from New Zealand ° . - 125 Notice of Two Viverride from evan lately eines in roe Gardens... 2; - 131 On a New Genus of gf Stor al in the *Collettion of Mr. Camine., 5. ss ae - 197 Description of a — ands of ides from retest with a Synopsis of the Family . 235 Han ey, H., Serjeant-Major 1st Life Guards. Observations on the Breeding of the Nightingale in Cap- tivity . - 196 Harcourt, Epwarp VErRNon, Esq. Notice of the Birds of Madeira. (In a Letter addressed to the Secretary.) yecct Go ea eenhs » 141 HERRMANNSEN, Dr., of Kiel. On some Genera of Shells, established in 1807 by the late H. F. Link . eee Pererinmeriorse meme ne 5 fay son?) Kaup, Dr. Descriptions of some New Birds in the Museum of the Earl of Derby . 39 Mack, Mr. Remarks on the fact of Black Eggs being laid by a White Duck. (Communicated by Mr. Oswald.) . . . . . . 192 Mercatrs, W., Esq. An Enumeration of Species of recent Shells, received by W. J. Hamilton, Esq., from Borneo, in November 1850, with Descriptions of the New Species 70 vi Newman, Epwarp, Esq., F.L.S. &c. page A few words on the Synonymy of Distichocera, a Genus of Longicorn Coleoptera from New Holland, with Characters of Three Species supposed to be undescribed . . . . ~ 75 Nicuotson, Dr., H.E.I.C. Medical Service. Note on a New Species of Francolin . . . . . . . 128 Notes on an undescribed Species of Tailor-bird. . . . 194 Notes on a New Species of Artamus from India. . . . 195 Owen, Professor, F.R.S. &c. On a New Species of Pterodactyle (Pterodactylus com- pressirostris, Owen) from the Chalk; with some Remarks on the Nomenclature of the previously described Species . . 21 On the Anatomy of the Wart-Hog (Phacocherus Pallasit, Van der Hoeven). . . 63 On the Skeleton of Troglodytes Gorilla Grid will be published in the Transactions) . . - 263 On the Capacity of the Cranium in itis Mesa. the Oasie. and the Gorilla (which will be published in the Transac- [OLB SY 1S NWP de-N a a aa Pasha ae Prerrrer, Dr. L. Descriptions of New Land Shells from the Collection of Hi. Cuming, Esq... - 147 Descriptions of Forty-three New dpeaiss of Cylisiiiase, from the Collection of H. Cuming, Esq. . . . - 242 Descriptions of Fifty-four New Species of pies fon the Collection of H. Cuming, Esq... . . . . . - «+252 Puitier!, Dr. Descriptiones Naticarum quarundam novarum ex collec- tione: Comingiana, “5, fey pany au aa... seayeeecinns Lieer \ ay Debate Ed pe REEvE, Lovett, Esq., F.L.S. &c. Description of a New Species of Bulimus from Australia 198 ScLaTER, P. L., Esq., B.A. On Two New Species of Birds of the Genus Tenioptera . 193 Tomes, Joun, Esq., F.R.S. &c. On the Structure of the Teeth of the American and Indian! Tapitints saa us . ehisaid wot ott 3 cabal vii Turner, H. N., Jun., Esq. page Note on the Suborbital Gland of the Nylghau . . . . 116 On the Change of Colour in a Chameleon (Chameleo RATES ES GNU. hn ed, oh teak aah ton aaa wate, /c0aS On the Arrangement of the Edentate Mammalia . . . 205 Westwoop, J. O., Esq., F.L.S. &e. Observations on the Dentition of the Tiger Beetles . . 198 YaARRELL, W., Esq., F.L.S. &c. Letter on the Deal-fish, from Dr. Duguid to Dr. Barker . 116 yi © eaten Tees A, Kays i “Ah ae pal sages ow be a aye : ‘ALA 8: fee seuailammag RUE dis Wo ongl Nidiedvibad aati, Ts oe uP daha) anlenheneereal > wt dicvad lobe pend oe lah : Pe! ‘ GOR Sh por panier a ipigetnusl stan dae udtiroaai bined, + «avn ip! ee Rrisetend jp Upm Ata i ied art i si aw Pa a, A fh 1 Wolo 20.0 Sil Mongies of Soe BUL pall 0.7 uncqalell f ie “ee Webel oaoitionsey 5dyino: wtbitarsoad Qt na’ elt orem | ‘Ne! pene a Arviniur f oem oy ; as AD Pak. E Pcpalt oe pr ene rN ACL toch lata oils wo thigh = PF Dis 9 Ree Pate OF “Ate rociae ty la ( Me roacklns some as "hp setely: ea en Din Chek: ith: acer Resin ge: es ee 2: Datiieshaa ie Alte peer jaialy Payee ess fa yidiciod Be me Ms va ie: Artaneorn of shit Wages ey tf ect distin’ gana igi Hoven Ty fe he ah ah oe « Et is thee Snide dian ” ot rinodgh Cit t aig ‘ ah i “Filadistieed Wemee Treminetions) os Ke P eae Ry abiprnpie. 8 aes Capua ‘OF Te Catite bs ihe eee abe Cpa, Whe eh ie He Gah, SS wit he: loeblihall i te pee See 4 Piatra ios feats if a ee: “9! Peeetipeiond of Here dav Brits Revista Coibettigar ge “PR Coearig, Rage y 54) oe tel ttons at Povey: itok ee FE ig aed i froth vile Cethrutton, of 21> Cyrariag, Kan, i ; Deesirigtivtce at Pilati Nave Biveailip’ of otic: ae he abet ne EE rect ba ri) PY SR eae cs | Coady, by ae *< | Deskriptioaay Nedieap elias uteounh ea aig Hine init Mee i PR VR Ne Se ial Q ae ‘ LIST OF PLATES. 1851. Plate MAMMALIA. Page XXIX. Molar Tooth of the American Tapir ................ 12] MEX. © Herpéstes Smathti, Gray ods 2¢s0cv vdus vend csdeeas. 131 XXXII. Cynictis Maccarthie, Gray .......0ccccececcvcccses 131 AVES. AMA. Balenienps rex, Gouldac ss sus saichws sane p eee oka: ] XXXVI. Saurophagus Derbianus, Kaup .........0.00.0e00e. 39 RAMVIL. Pears Brose’ d: Kaap <2 .ccs casce cane ees 39 XXXVIII AP 5 MORIEDN. “sce tovevenn Bist siege tate ene 39 XXXIX. Megapodius Cumingii, Dillwyn ..........0...0000 0. 118 XL. Francolinus yemensis, Nicholson ..............005. 128 XLI. Tenioptera erythropygia, Sclater ...............0.. 193 XLII. —— — striaticollis, Sclater ............0.0.000- 193 XLII. Artamus cucullatus, Nicholson ............0000000. 195 XLIV. Sagmatorrhina Lathami, Bonap. .............0.00. 201 POE MABE OL GUE «a5 scae s'clcncaie, wd. cet ace Mma Hotes 280 PISCES. IV. Petromyzon marinus, &c. &c. &C. 1... eee eee 235 We |, CORA, ARTIS so 9 once bis) o's nea ole 5 eakm ia ae ek Se 235 REPTILIA. IV. Pterodactylus longirostris, Bowerbank .............. 14 VI. Anadia ocellata, Emminia olivacea, Iphisa elegans, Gray 38 MOLLUSCA. XII. Bulimus Maconelli, Reeve ..........cccccccccrence 198 ANNULOSA. XX. Distichocera Kirbyi g, Newman ............. eee ty A) RADIATA. Gonigoria clavata, : 1. { Mueltaa vbsideatake, (ORY stare aaa aaa: 124 EV... Aiguores Ferekalen sos evs ocanusluse date neeeaenens 272 Pre rr a ee) Tt. tt @ Se Cas as ERE CRs OR ae papdemeasa tein ~<: Rg ae SS) if age ce aD: Qaida im occ soe ae ere ee ee Length of the femur..............0...0.0. 1°34 Leneth ofthe) tibia) sy. 082. Fen Bo. 1-90 Smallest diameter of the radius near the distal exisemivy IFoo Pe 2. OO ee 0°14 By these measurements it is apparent that the tibia, radius and ulna and Ist phalange are equal in length. The humerus and 3rd phalange are also equal to each other, and so likewise are the meta- carpus and femur equal to each other. If we also compare the small- est diameter of the radius, 0°14 inch, with its length, 1°90 inch, we find that the bone is 13,8, diameters long, and in P. Macronyz (Buck- landi) it is 134. We may therefore be enabled, by keeping these comparative measurements in view, to predict with a tolerable degree of certainty the spread of wing of any Pterodactyl of which we may find one or more of the principal bones of the wing, and especially if No. CCXX.—PRoceEDINGs or THE ZOOLOGICAL Society. 18 we take into consideration the comparative length of each bone with regard to its total extension, as exhibited in the table of the dimen- sions of P. longirostris. In the case of the great specimens of radius we may arrive at their length in many cases, although the bone may be imperfect at even both terminations. Thus the diameter of the smallest portion of the bone formerly in the possession of the Karl of Enniskillen and figured by Prof. Owen, is ‘81 inch at the smallest portion of the shaft: this bone therefore, on the scale of 135 diame- ters to its length, should be 10°93 inches in length. The measure- ment of the smallest portion of the bone belonging to Mrs. Smith (Geol. Journ. vol. iv. pl. 2. fig. 1@) is*77 inch: we may therefore, by the same rule, conclude that its length was 10°39 inches when per- fect. The length of the imperfect ulna beside it is 9°25 inches in the specimen. The diameter of the smallest portion of the bone (Geol. Journ. vol. ii. pl. 1. fig. 6) is ‘45 inch, which, in the proportion of 133 diameters to its length, will give 6°07 inches for its length. The width of the corresponding bone in the possession of Mr. Charles of Maidstone is 1°25 inch at the smallest diameter: by the same rule, therefore, the approximate length should be 16°87. The remains of the bone alongside of it is, although imperfect at both ends, actually 12°25 inches in length. Upon these grounds therefore, in every case derived as much as possible from direct measurements from the skeletons of the respective species, I have given the following table of the dimensions of a series of species of Pterodactyls, the most interesting either from the state of perfection in which their remains have been found, or from the gigantic proportions which they present ; and thus have endeavoured to realize to the mind an idea, as nearly as possible correct, of the di- mensions of the animals when alive. Table of the relative proportions of known species of Pterodactylus, with the length of each of the wing-bones and half of the width of the body. 3 2 3 5 | 1 9,80 : 21 EB] 2| P| Ble. [ees BolSala lb Bi) 2 lob log) glee F8s rr) a8 5 g a wy a a Fo|_& Sy Ea 5 Neel es [es mg (on eyt | Som ile aes Be Jems, lh Os je dod aié6 | 3 |= ledge in. in. fin. in. in. in. in in. ft. in. P. brevirostris ...} 0°48 | 0°75 0:06] 0°52) 0°82] 0°76] 0°48] 0°35/0°19| 0 9 P. longirostris ...} 1°25 | 1°90 0°13} 1°34] 1°90] 1:75] 1:25} 1:17 |0°47| 1 10 P. crassirostris...| 2°08 | 4°42 0°34 1:32 | 2°83] 2°53] 2°08} 2°32|1°10| 3 2 P. Bucklandi.....} 3°25} 4°25 0°40] 3°75] 3°91] 4°83] 3°25] 3°00/1:06| 4 7 P. grandis ........ 3°75 | 5°70 0°39] 4°02) 5°70) 5°50) 2°75) 3°51|142) 5 5 P. giganteus...... 4:43) 6°74 0°46 | 4:75| 6°74] 6:21] 4:43] 4:14|1°68| 6 7 P. (Mrs. Snitiia 6°76 |10°39 0°70 | 7:26 |10°39 | 9°49} 6°76] 6°33 |2°59 |10 2 P. Cuvieri .. .{10°99 |16°87 |1°14 |11°79 |16°87 |15°56 |10-99 |10°29 |4°:22 |16 6 In the above table I have presumed that the largest bones should be associated with the snout described as the type of P. Cuvieri, but the truth of this assignment of the bones belonging to Mr. Charles 19 can alone be determined by the acquisition of more complete speci- mens of the animal than those at present known. In the construction of this table I have taken the proportions of P. longirostris as the foundation, as it is the only species from which I could get the measurements of all the bones of the wing from the same animal; but it must not be supposed that the restorations effected in the table will be absolutely correct at all times in its appli- cation, for we see that in P. longirostris the radius and first pha- lange are equal, but in ecrassirostris and Bucklandi this is not the case: the greatest discrepancy rests with crassirostris, while Buck- landi and brevirostris accord much more nearly with the proportions of longirostris; and if we may judge by the comparative difference between those bones in longirostris on the one part, and Bucklandi and crassirostris on the other, it may perhaps be fairly surmised that the greater length of wing would be found to exist in the long-nosed species, and consequently that Buchklandi will prove to belong to the short-nosed ones; and this also would seem to be indicated by what remains of the cervical vertebree in the original specimen in the Bri- tish Museum. Prof. Owen, in treating of these animals in my late friend Mr. Dixon’s work ‘On the Geology and Fossils of the Tertiary and Cre- taceous Formations of Sussex,’ has thought proper to re-name P. gi- ganteus, and designate it P. conirostris, Owen. I certainly did not lend my specimens to my late friend Mr. Dixon for the illustration of his work, with a view of having the name which I had assigned to this new and gigantic species subverted, and without in the slightest degree being consulted on the subject. Nor can I concur with the reasons given by Prof. Owen for thus re-naming it, as the name gi- ganteus was not given, as stated by the learned Professor, “because certain bones of another and larger animal, of a different species, have been erroneously referred to it ;” but, in truth, from its being the largest distinct species at that time known, exceeding P. Buchlandi (or Macronyx) by two feet in the spread of its wings, and P. grandis of Cuvier by above a foot. The beautiful specimen of radius and ulna in the possession of Mrs. Smith, and subsequently figured in my second paper, was at that time unknown to me, and the bone then in the possession of the Earl of Enniskillen was claimed by the Professor as that ofabird. I had therefore no other material than that in my own possession on which to base my name of giganteus. If the learned Professor’s reason for the proposed change of name is to hold good, that of exclusive fitness in specific nomenclature, then the one he proposes is also inappropriate, as it might be with equal propriety given to either crassirostris or brevirostris ; or if specific names, based on comparisons of size, are to be extinguished, and new names given on the discovery of new species, there would be no end of the confusion generated; thus, as P. brevirostris is thicker in its proportions than crassirostris, they would require to exchange names, or the latter at least to be re-named ; medius would no longer be me- dius, with the addition of our new species, and grandis would no longer be grand in comparison. Into what an unenviable state of confusion 20 should we not plunge nomenclature if we were to adopt the practice of the learned Professor, instead of the precepts so judiciously laid down by himself and others of the Committee of Nomenclature of the British Association, and which I quote as a justification on my part for my refusal to adopt the learned Professor’s exchange of my name for the one he has proposed ! In page 4 of the Report, under the head of “ Law of Priority the only effectual and just one,” we find the following passages :—“ It being admitted on all hands that words are only the conventional signs of ideas, it is evident that language can only attain its end effectually by being permanently established and generally recog- nized. This consideration ought, it would seem, to have checked those who are continually attempting to subvert the established lan- guage by substituting terms of their own coinage.” ...... “Now in zoology no one person can subsequently claim an authority equal to that possessed by the person who is the first to define a new genus or describe a new species; and hence it is that the name originally given, even though it be inferior in point of elegance or expressive- ness to those subsequently proposed, ought, as a general principle, to be permanently retained. To this consideration we ought to add the injustice of erasing the name originally selected by the person to whose labours we owe our first knowledge of the object.” To these excel- lent principles the learned Professor has given the sanction of his signature. Prof. Owen, in the article on Péerodactylus in Mr. Dixon’s work, has not quoted my observations on those Reptiles so fully as I could have wished; inasmuch as he has adverted to the strongly- marked peculiarities of the bone-cells, which are the principal cha- racters in the question at issue, in so slight a manner, as almost to induce me to imagine that he must have forgotten them entirely. I shall simply content myself in challenging Prof. Owen to produce any such general structure and proportions of the bone-cells from the skeleton of any recent or extinct bird as those existing in the long bone described as Cimoliornis, or to produce any such radius and ulna of a bird containing similar bone-cells as those in the possession of Mrs. Smith, and figured by me in my paper in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for February 1848,’ vol. iv. pl. 2. On the subject of the strictures with which Prof. Owen has fa- voured me at the conclusion of his observations in Mr. Dixon’s work, and how far I have been ‘“‘ wanting in a due comprehension of the subject, and have been a hindrance instead of a furtherance of true knowledge,” I am content to leave to the judgement of those who may feel a sufficient degree of interest to induce them to peruse what I have written in my former papers on the Pterodactyles of the Chalk. 21 January 28, 1851. R. H. Solly, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. The following papers were read :— 1. ON A NEW SPECIES OF PrERODACTYLE (PTERODACTYLUS COM- PRESSIROSTRIS, OWEN) FROM THE CHALK; WITH SOME Re- MARKS ON THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE PREVIOUSLY DE- SCRIBED SPECIES. By Pror. Owen, F.R.S. (Reptilia, Pl. V.) The honour of having first made known the existence of remains of the Pterodactyle in the Chalk deposits belongs to James Scott Bowerbank, Esq., F.R.S. This indefatigable collector had the good fortune to receive in 1845, from the Kentish Chalk, the characteristic jaws and teeth, with part of the scapular arch and a few other bones, of a well-marked species of Pterodactyle, and the discovery was briefly recorded in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of Lon- don,’ and in the ‘ Proceedings’ of the Society for May 14, 1845, with an illustrative plate (pl. 1). Mr. Bowerbank concludes his notice by referring to a large fossil wing-bone from the chalk, previously described and figured by me in the ‘ Geological Transactions,’ and remarks that, “if it should prove to belong to a Pterodactyle, the probable expansion of the wings would reach to at least eight or nine feet. Under these circum- stances,’ he says, ‘‘I propose that the species described above shall be designated Pterodactylus giganteus.” (loc. cit. p.8.) Subsequent discoveries and observations have inclined the balance of probability in favour of the Pterodactylian nature of the fossils to which Mr. Bower- bank refers, but have shown them to belong to distinct species. These fossils are not, indeed, amongst the characteristic parts of the flying reptile: one of them is the shaft of a long bone exhibiting those peculiarities of structure which are common to birds and ptero- dactyles ; the other shows an articular extremity, which, in our pre- sent ignorance of those of the different bones of the Pterodactyle, has its nearest analogue in the distal trochlea of the bird’s tibia. These two specimens, which are figured in the sixth volume of the Second Series of the ‘Transactions of the Geological Society,’ 1840, pl. 39. figs. 1 & 2, were transmitted to me by the Karl of Enniskillen and Dr. Buckland, as being “‘the bones of a bird” (p. 411), and my com- parisons of them were limited to that class. The idea of their possibly belonging to a Pterodactyle did occur to me, but it was dispelled by the following considerations. The act of flight—the most energetic mode of locomotion—demands a special modification of the Vertebrate organization, in that subkingdom, for its exertion. But in the class 4ves, in which every system is more or less adapted and co-adjusted for this end, the laws of gravitation seem to forbid the successful exercise of the volant powers in species beyond a certain bulk ; and when this exceeds that of the Condor or Albatros, 22 as, for example, in the Cassowary, the Emeu, or the Ostrich, although the organization is essentially that of the Vertebrate animal modified for flight, flight is impossible ; and its immediate instruments, to the exercise of which all the rest of the system is more or less subordi- nated, are checked in their development ; and, being unfitted for flight, they are not modified for any other use. There is not, per- haps, a more anomalous or suggestive phenomenon in nature than a bird which cannot fly! A small section of the Mammalia is modi- fied for flight ; but the plan of the organization of that warm-blooded class being less directly adapted for flight than that of birds, the weight and bulk of the body which may be raised and transported through the air are restricted to a lower range, and the largest frugi- vorous Bat (Pteropus) does not exceed the Raven in size. The Rep- tilian modification of the Vertebrate type would seem to be still less fitted for any special adjustment to aérial locomotion ; and in the pre- sent day we know of no species of the class that can sustain itself in the air which equals a Sparrow in size. And the species in question— the little Draco volans—sails rather than flies, upborne by its out- stretched costal parachute in its oblique leaps from bough to bough. Of the remarkable reptiles now extinct, which, like the Bats, had their anterior members modified for plying a broad membranous wing, no species had been discovered prior to 1840 which surpassed the largest of the Pteropi, or Flying-Foxes, in the spread of those wings, and there was, @ priori, a physiological improbability that the cold- blooded organization of a Reptile should by any secondary modifica- tion be made to effect more in the way of flight, or be able to raise a larger mass into the air, than could be done by the warm-blooded Mammal under an analogous special adaptation. When, therefore, the supposed bird’s bone (Geol. Trans. 1840, pl. 39. fig. 1) was first submitted to me by Dr. Buckland, which on the Pterodactyle hypo- thesis could not be the humerus, but must have been one of the smaller bones of the wing, its size seemed decisive against its reference to an animal of flight having a cold-blooded organization. The sub- sequent discovery of the portion of the skull of the Pterodactyle, de- scribed by Mr. Bowerbank at the last meeting of the Society (Jan. 14), shows that the resources of Creative power in past time surpass the calculations that are founded upon actual nature. It is only the practised Comparative Anatomist that can fully realize the difficulty of the attempt to resolve a paleeontological problem from such data as the two fragments of long bones first submitted to me in 1840. He alone can adequately appreciate the amount of research involved in such a generalization as that “there is no bird now known, north of the equator, with which the fossils can be compared ;”’ and when, after a wearying progress through an extensive class, the spe- cies is at length found to which the nearest resemblance is made by the fragmentary fossil, and the differences are conscientiously pointed out—as when, in reference to the humerus of the Albatros, I stated that ‘‘it differs therefrom in the more marked angles which bound the three sides ’””—the genuine worker and searcher after truth may conceive the feelings with which I find myself misrepresented as 23 having regarded the specimens “as belonging to an extinct species of Albatros.” My reference of the bones even to the longipennate tribe of natatorial birds is stated hypothetically and with due caution : “*On the supposition that this fragment of bone is the shaft of the humerus, its length and comparative straightness would prove it to have belonged to one of the longipennate natatorial birds equalling in size the Albatros.” (doc. cit. p. 411.) Since the discovery has been made of the manifestly characteristic parts of the genus Pterodactylus in the Burham chalk-pit, it has been objected that the bones first discovered there, and described by me as resembling birds of flight, ‘‘are so extremely thin, as to render it most improbable that they could ever have sustained such an instru- ment of flight as the powerful wing of the Albatros, or of any other bird: their tenuity is in fact such,” says the ex post facto Objector, ‘as to point out their adaptation to support an expanded membrane, but not pinions *.” The reply to this assertion need only be a simple reference to na- ture: sections of the wing-bones of birds may be seen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and have been exposed to view, since the discovery of their structure by the Founder of that Collec- tion, in every Museum of Comparative Anatomy worthy to be so called. To expose the gratuitous character of the objection above cited, I have placed on the table a section of the very bone that directly sus- tains the large quill-feathers in the Pelican ; its parietes are only half as thin as those of the antibrachial bone of the great Pterodactyle which is figured in my ‘ History of British Fossil Reptiles,’ pl. 4, and is not thicker than those of the bone figured in the Geological Trans- actions, 1840, above cited. Hunter, who had obtained some of the long bones with thin walls and a wide cavity from the Stonesfield slate, has entered them in his MS. Catalogue of Fossils as the “ Bones of Birds,’’ and per- haps no practical anatomist had had greater experience in the degree of tenuity presented by the compact walls of the large air-cavities of the bones in that class. Of all the modifications of the dermal system for combining extent of surface with lightness of material, the ex- panded feather has been generally deemed the consummation. Well might the eloquent Paley exclaim, ‘‘ Every feather is a mechanical wonder: their disposition all inclined backwards, the down about the stem, the overlapping of their tips, their different configuration in dif- ferent parts, not to mention the variety of their colours, constitute a vestment for the body so beautiful and so appropriate to the life which the animal is to lead, as that, I think, we should have had no conception of anything equally perfect, if we had never seen it, or can imagine anything more so.” It was reserved for the author of the ‘ Wonders of Geology’ to prefer the leathern wing of the Bat and Pterodactyle as the lighter form, and to discover that such a structure as is displayed in the bone described and figured in the ‘ Geol. Trans.’ * Mantell, ‘ Wonders of Geology,’ 1848, vol. i. p. 441. 24 vol. vi. pl. 39, was a most improbable one to have sustained a power- ful wing of any bird!* Let me not be supposed, however, to be concerned in excusing my own mistake; [ am only reducing the unamiable exaggeration of it. Above all things, in our attempt to gain a prospect of an unknown world by the difficult ascent of the fragmentary ruins of a former temple of life, we ought to note the successful efforts, as well as the occasional deviations from the right track, with an equal glance, and record them with a strict regard to truth. The existence of a species of Albatros, or of any other actual genus of bird during the period of the Middle Chalk, would be truly a wonder of Geology ; not so the existence of a bird of the longipen- nate family. I still think it for the interest of science, in the present limited extent of induction from microscopic observation, to offer a warning against a too hasty and implicit confidence in the forms and propor- tions of the Purkingean or radiated corpuscles of bone, as demon- strative of such minor groups of a class as that of the genus Ptero- dactylus. Such a statement as that ‘these cells in Birds have a breadth in proportion to their length of from one to four or five ; while in Reptiles the length exceeds the breadth ten or twelve times,”’ only betrays the limited experience of the assertor. In the dermal plates of the Tortoise, e. g., the average breadth of the bone-cell to its length is as one to six, and single ones might be selected of greater breadth. With the exception of one restricted family of Ruminants, every Mammal, the blood-dises of which have been submitted to examina- tion, has been found to possess those particles of a circular form: in the Camelide they are elliptical, as in birds and reptiles. The bone- cells have already shown a greater range of variety in the Vertebrate series than the blood-dises. Is it then a too scrupulous reticence to require the evidence of microscopic structure of a bone to be corrobo- rated by other testimony of a plainer kind, before hastening to an absolute determination of its nature, as has been done with regard to the Wealden bone, figured in the Geol. Trans., 2nd Series, vol. v. pl. 13. fig. 6¢? As a matter of fact, the existence of Pterodactylian remains in the chalk was not surmised through any observation of the microscopic structure of bones that are liable to be mistaken for those of birds, but was first plainly proved by the characteristic portions of the Pterodactyle defined by Mr. Bowerbank, as follows, in his original communication of this discovery to the Geological Society of London, May 14, 1845 :— “I have recently obtained from the Upper Chalk ¢ of Kent some * Mantell, ‘Wonders,’ &c. ed. 1848, vol. i. p. 441. + Compare, for example, two of the longest of the cells figured by Mr. Bower- bank in pl.1. fig. 9, ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ vol. iv. as those of a bird, with two of the widest of the cells figured in fig. 1 of the same plate as those of the Pterodactyle; and contrast the want of parallelism in the bone-cells of the Wealden bone, fig. 9, with the parallelism of the long axes of the cells in that of the Albatros, fig. 3. ¢ Mr. Toulmin Smith, in an able paper “On the Formation of the Flints of the 25 remains of a large species of Pterodactylus. The bones consist of— “1. The fore part of the head as far as about the middle of the cavitas narium, with a corresponding portion of the under jaws, many of the teeth remaining in their sockets. “2. A fragment of the bone of the same animal, apparently a part of the coracoid. «3. A portion of what appears to be one of the bones of the auri- cular digit, from a chalk-pit at Halling. «<4. A portion of a similar bone, from the same locality as No. 1. **5. The head of a long bone, probably the tibia, belonging to the same animal as the head, No. 1. «*6. A more perfect bone of the same description, not from the same animal, but found at Halling.” In a subsequent communication, dated December 1845, Mr. Bower- bank states with regard to the specimens Nos. 5 and 6, which he supposed to be parts of a tibia, that “‘on a more careful comparison with the figures of Pterodactylus by Goldfuss, 1 am inclined to be- lieve they are more likely to be portions of the ulna.” With respect to the long bone, No. 6 in the above list, comparing it with that figured in the Geol. Trans., 2nd Series, vol. vi. pl. 39. fig. 1, and referred by me to Cimoliornis diomedeus, Mr. Bowerbank writes :— “Although the two specimens differ greatly in size, there is so strong a resemblance between them in the form and regularity of the shaft, and in the comparative substance of the bony structure, as to render it exceedingly probable that they belong to the same class of animals ;”” and he concludes by remarking, that “If the part of the head in my possession (see fig. 1) be supposed similar in its propor- tions to that of Pterodactylus crassirostris,—and there appears but little difference in that respect,—it would indicate an animal of com- paratively enormous size. The length of the head, from the tip of the nose to the basal extremity of the skull, of Pt. crassirostris is about 4% inches, while my specimen would be, as nearly as can be estimated, 91 inches. According to the restoration of the animal by Goldfuss, Pt. crassirostris would measure as nearly as possible three feet from tip to tip of the wings, and it is probable that the species now described would measure at least six feet from one extremity of the expanded wings to the other; but if it should hereafter prove that the bone described and figured by Prof. Owen belongs to a Pte- rodactyle, the probable expansion of the wings would reach to at least eight or nine feet. Under these circumstances I propose that the spe- cies described above shall be designated Pterodactylus giganteus.”’ (Quarterly Geol. Journ. vol. ii. p. 8.) In a subsequent memoir, read June 9, 1847, and published in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ vol. iv. February 1848, Mr. Bowerbank gives figures of the ‘bone-cells’ from the jaw of a Upper Chalk,” in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ vol. xx. p. 295, affirms that no upper chalk exists in the localities whence the above-defined specimens came. They are from the “ Middle Chalk.” 26 Pterodactyle (pl. 1. fig. 1), from the shaft of the bone in question (0b. fig. 2), and from the femur of a recent Albatros (id. fig. 3), in corroboration of the required proof: and he adds, “Fortunately the two fine specimens from the rich collection of Mrs. Smith of Ton- bridge Wells, represented by fig. 1. pl. 2, in a great measure justify this conclusion; and in the bone a, which is apparently the corre- sponding bone to the one represented by fig. 1 in Prof. Owen’s paper, the head is very nearly in a perfect state of preservation.” (op. cit. p. 5.) Mr. Bowerbank, in his explanation of plate 2, describes the two fine specimens above mentioned as “Fig. 1. Radius and ulna of Pterodactylus giganteus, in the cabinet of Mrs. Smith of Tonbridge Wells.” (tom. cit. p. 10.) He proceeds to state, ‘There are two other similar bones, imbedded side by side, in the collection of Mr. Charles of Maidstone, of still greater dimensions than those from the cabinet of Mrs. Smith ;”’ and he assigns his grounds for the conclu- sion, that ‘the animal to which such bones belonged could, therefore, have scarcely measured less than fifteen or sixteen feet from tip to tip of its expanded wings.” The Committee of the British Association for the Reform and Re- gulation of Zoological Nomenclature, amongst other excellent rules, have decided that, “A name which is glaringly false shall be changed” (Report, p. 113). I submit that this is the case when the name gi- ganteus is proposed for a species less than half the size of others pre- viously discovered. Now, although those remains of the truly gigantic Pterodactyles had not been demonstrated to be such, yet they were suspected so to be by Mr. Bowerbank when he proposed the name giganteus ; and the name is in fact proposed, subject to the condition of that demonstration, and under the evident belief that they be- longed to the same species as the obvious Pterodactyle remains he was describing. He says, ‘‘ Under these circumstances I propose that the species shall be designated ‘giganteus’,”’ and the circumstances referred to are the probable case that the bones, which from their large size I had supposed to belong to a bird, should prove to belong to a Pterodactyle. : The Committee for the Reform of Zoological Nomenclature next proceed to determine that, “Names not clearly defined may be changed. Unless a species or group is intelligibly defined when the name is given, it cannot be recognised by others, and the signification of the name is consequently lost. Two things are necessary before a zoological term can acquire any authority, viz. definition and publi- cation. Definition properly implies a distinct exposition of essential characters, and in all cases we conceive this to be indispensable.” (Report, pp.113,114.) Now with regard to the Pterodactylus gigan- teus, Mr. Bowerbank had unreservedly applied the term to the species to which the long wing-bone first described by me might appertain, under the circumstances of its beg proved to belong to a Pterodac- tyle ; inasmuch as he had figured two similar and equal-sized bones in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ vol. iv. pl. 2. fig. 1 (Proceedings of the Society for June 9, 1847), as the “radius and ulna 27 of Pterodactylus giganteus.” So far as a species can be intelligibly defined by figures, that to which the term giganteus was in 1845 pro- visionally, and in 1847 absolutely applied, seemed to be clearly enough pointed out by the plate 2 in the work above cited. But, with the large bones appropriately designated by the term giganteus, some parts of a smaller Pterodactyle, including the portions of jaws first announcing the genus in the Chalk, had been associated under the same name. Supposing those bones to have belonged to a young individual of the Pterodactylus giganteus, no difficulty or confusion would arise. After instituting, however, a rigid comparison of these specimens, when drawing up my Descriptions for Mr. Dixon’s work, I was compelled to arrive at the conclusion that the parts figured by Mr. Bowerbank in plate 2, figs. 1 & 2, of vol. 11. of the ‘Quarterly Geo- logical Journal,’ and the parts figured in plate 2, figs. 1 a & 4, of vol. iv. of the same Journal, both assigned by Mr. Bowerbank to the Ptero- dactylus giganteus, belonged to two distinct species. The portions of the scapula and coracoid of the Pterodactyle (pl. 1. fig. 2, tom. cit.) indicated by their complete anchylosis that they had not been part of a young individual of the species to which the large antibrachial bones (pl. 2. fig. 1 a & 6, tom. cit.) belonged; although they might well appertain to the species to which the jaws (pl. 1. fig. 1) belonged. Two species of Pterodactyle were plainly indicated, as I have shown in the above-cited work, by my lamented friend Mr. Dixon, ‘On the Tertiary and Cretaceous Deposits of Sussex,’ 4to, p. 402. The same name could not be retained for both, and it was in obedience to this necessity, and not with any idea of detracting an iota from the merit of Mr. Bowerbank’s original announcement of the existence of a Pte- rodactyle in the chalk, that I proposed the name of conirostris for the smaller species, then for the first time distinctly defined and di- stinguished from the larger remains to which the name giganteus had also been given by Mr. Bowerbank. I proposed the name, more- over, provisionally and with submission to the ‘Committee for the Reform of Zoological Nomenclature,’ according to whose rules I be- lieved myself to be guided. My conclusions as to the specific distinction of the remains of the smaller Pterodactyle (pl. 1, tom. cit. 1845) from those figured in plate 2. tom. cit. 1848, have received full confirmation by the va- luable discovery of the portion of the cranium of the truly gigantic Pterodactyle, about to be described, to which they belonged ; and it is certainly to be wished that, in determining to assign to Mrs. Smith’s specimens the name of ‘ giganteus,’ Mr. Bowerbank should have con- formed to the following equitable rule of the ‘Committee of Nomen- clature’ :—‘‘ The author who jist describes and names a species, which forms the groundwork of later generalizations, possesses a higher claim to have his name recorded than he who afterwards de- fines a genus which is found to embrace that species. ...... By giving the authority for the specific name in preference to all others, the inquirer is referred directly to the original description, habitat, &c. of the species, and is at the same time reminded of the date of its discovery.”’ (Reports of the British Association, 1842, p. 120.) 28 Now the species which I originally described under the name of Cimoliornis diomedeus comes precisely under this category: it has formed the groundwork of later generalizations, which have led to its being embraced by another genus. In this case the Committee of Nomenclature, whilst determining that the specific name should be retained, recommend that the describer should “append to the ori- ginal authority for the species, when not applying to the genus also, some distinctive mark, such as (sp.), implying an exclusive reference to the specific name.”” In conformity with the above recommenda- tion, the gigantic species of Pterodactyle, of which parts have been described by Mr. Bowerbank, and parts previously by myself, would be entered into the Zoological Catalogues as follows :— Pterodactylus diomedeus, Owen (sp.), Proceedings of the Zoolo- gical Society, January 1851. Cimoliornis diomedeus, Ybid., British Fossil Mammals and Birds, p. 545, cuts 230, 231 (1843-1846). Osteornis diomedaus, Gervais, Thése sur les Oiseaux Fossiles, 8vo, p- 38 (1844). Pterodactylus giganteus, Bowerbank, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. iv. p. 10. pl. 2. figs. 1 & 4 (1848). Leaving, however, the question of names, regarding which I have no personal feeling except that they should indicate their objects without ambiguity or obvious impropriety, I proceed to lay before the same Society to which Mr. Bowerbank has communicated his last interesting and important discovery, similar evidence of a third spe- cies of Pterodactyle from the chalk, intermediate im size between the species of which the jaws were figured as the Pterodactylus giganteus in 1845, and the truly gigantic species which he has named Ptero- dactylus Cuvieri. The specimens, which consist of two portions of the upper jaw, form part of that gentleman’s collection, and were in fact exhibited on the table, but unnoticed, at our last meeting, their true nature not having been recognised. The chief portion might well indeed be mis- taken, at first sight, for a crushed portion of an ordinary long bone ; and it was not until after a close comparison of several specimens of these rare and interesting remains of Pterodactyles, kindly confided to me by Mrs. Smith of Tonbridge Wells, Mr. Toulmin Smith of Highgate, Mr. Charles of Maidstone, and by Mr. Bowerbank him- self, for description in my forthcoming ‘ Monograph on the Fossil Reptiles of the Chalk,’ that I discovered them to be parts of a skull of an undescribed species of Pterodactyle. In order to make this understood, it will be necessary to premise a few words on the Pterodactyles in general, and on some of the cha- racters of the jaw of the Pterodactylus Cuvieri in particular. The Order Péerosauria includes species of flying reptiles so modi- fied in regard to the structure and proportions of the skull, the dis- position of the teeth, and the development of the tail, as to be refer- able even according to the partial knowledge we now possess of this once extensive group, to different genera. 29 M. Von Meyer e. g. primarily divides the Order into— A. DIARTHRI, with a two-jointed wing-finger. Ex. Pterodactylus (Ornithopterus) Lavateri. B. TETRARTHRI, with a four-jointed wing-finger. Ex. All the other known species of the order. These again are subdivided into— 1. Dentirostres. Jaws armed with teeth to their ends; a bony sclerotic ring; scapula and coracoid not confluent with one an- other * ; a short moveable tail. Ex. Pterodactylus proper. 2. Subulirostres. Jaws with their ends produced into an edentu- lous point, probably sheathed with bone; no bony sclerotic ; scapula and coracoid confluent; a long and stiff tail. Ex. Pterodactylus (Ramphorhynchus) Gemmingi +. The extremity of the upper jaw of the Péerodactylus Cuvieri is sufficiently perfect to demonstrate that it had a pair of approximated alveoli close to its termination, and we may therefore refer it to the Dentirostral division. In this division, however, there are species which present such dif- ferent proportions of the beak, accompanied by differences in the rela- tive extent of the dental series, as would without doubt lead to their allocation in distinct genera, were they the living or recent subjects of the modern Erpetologist. In the Pterodactylus longirostris, the first species discovered and made known by Collini in 1784 f, the jaws are of extreme length and tenuity, and the alveoli of the upper jaw do not extend so far back as the nostril. In the Péerodactylus erassirostris, Goldfuss §, on the other hand, the jaws are short, thick, and obtusely terminated, and the alveoli of the upper jaw reach as far back as the middle of the vacuity which intervenes between the nostril and the orbit, and which Goldfuss terms the ‘ cavitas inter- media.’ In the solid or imperforate part of the upper jaw anterior to the nostril, the Pterodactylus longirostris has twelve long, subcompressed teeth, followed by a few of smaller size: the same part of the jaw in the Pt. crassirostris has but six teeth, of which the first four are close together at the end of the jaw, and the first three shorter than the rest. The cavitas intermedia in Pt. longirostris is much smaller than the nostril; in the Pt. crassirostris it is larger than the nostril. Were these two species of dentirostral Pterosauria to be taken, as by the modern Erpetologist they assuredly would, to be types of two * The condition of the scapular arch in the Pt. giganteus, Bow., Pt. conirostris mihi, demonstrates the fallacy of this character. + Palzontographia, Heft 1, 4to. 1846, p. 19. t+ Acta Academie Theodoro-Palatine, V. p. 58, tab. 5. § Beitrage zur Kenntniss verschiedener Reptilien der Vorwelt, 4to. 1831, sec. 1. tab. 7, 8, 9. 30 distinct genera, the name Pterodactylus should be retained for the longirostral species, as including the first-discovered specimen and type of the genus; and the crassirostral species should be grouped together under some other generic name. The specimen of gigantic Pterodactyle described by Mr. Bower- bank at the last meeting of the Society consists of the solid anterior end, 7. e. of the imperforate continuous bony walls, of a jaw, com- pressed and decreasing in depth, at first rapidly, then more gradually, to an obtusely-pointed extremity. As the symphysis of the lower jaw is long and the original joint obliterated, and its depth somewhat rapidly increases by the development of its lower and back part into a kind of ridge in some smaller Pterodactyles, the present specimen, so far as these characters go, might be referred to the lower jaw, and its relatively inferior depth to the upper jaw in the Pt. conirostris would seem to lead to that conclusion. But the present is plainly a species which has a longer and more slender snout in proportion to its size, and the convex curve formed by the alveolar border, slight as it is, decides it to be part of the upper jaw. The lower jaw, moreover, might be expected, by the analogy of the smaller Pterodactyles, to be flatter or less acute below the end of the symphysis. The specimen of Pt. Cuvieri consists of the anterior extremity of the upper jaw, of seven inches in extent, without any trace of the nasal or any other natural perforation of its upper or lateral parietes, and corresponds with the parts marked a, 4, in figs. 10&11. From the number of teeth contained in this part, the Pt. Cuvieri presents a much closer resemblance to the Pt. longirostris than to the Pé. erassirostris ; and if the entire skull were restored according to the proportions of the Pt. longirostris, it would be twenty-eight inches in length. But nature seems never to retain the same proportions in species that differ materially in bulk. The great Diprotodon, with the den- tal and cranial characters of a Kangaroo, does not retain the same length of hinder limbs as its living homologue ; the laws of gravity forbid the saltatory mode of locomotion to a Herbivore of the bulk of a Rhinoceros; and accordingly, whilst the hind-legs are shortened the fore-limbs are lengthened, and both are made more robust in the Diprotodon than in the Kangaroo. The change of proportions of the limbs of the Sloths is equally striking in those extinct species which were too bulky to climb, e. g. the Megatherium and Mylodon. We may therefore infer, with a high degree of probability, when a longirostral Pterodactyle much surpassed in bulk the species so called ‘par excellence,’ that the same proportions were not maintained in the length of the jaws; and that the species to which the fine frag- ment belonged, far as it has exceeded our previous ideas of the bulk of a flying reptile, did not sustain and carry through the air a head of oe feet four inches in length, or nearly double the size of that of the elican. Although the fractured hinder part of the jaw of the Pt. Cuvieri shows no trace of the commencement of the wide nasal aperture, there is a plain indication that the jaws were less prolonged than in the P¢. 31 longirostris, in the more rapid increase of the vertical breadth of the jaw. Opposite the ninth tooth, e. g., the depth of the jaw equals two- fifths of the length in advance of that tooth, whilst in the Pt. longi- rostris it is only two-sevenths. The contour of the upper border of the jaw in the Pt. Cuviert differs from that in both the Pt. long:- rostris, Pt. crassirostris, and Pt. Gemmingi, in sinking more sud- denly opposite the ninth, eighth and seventh teeth, than it does along the more advanced part of the jaw; a character which, while it affords a good specific distinction from any of those species, indicates the hinder parts of the head that are wanting in the present specimen to have been shorter and deeper than in the Pt. longirostris. The first pair of alveoli almost meet at the anterior extremity of the jaw, and their outlet is directed obliquely forwards and down- wards ; the obtuse end of the premaxillary above these alveoli is about two lines across. The palate quickly expands to a width of three lines between the second alveoli, then to a width of four lines between the fourth alveoli, and more gradually, after the ninth alveoli, to a width of six lines between the eleventh alveoli: here the palate ap- pears to have been slightly crushed; but in the rest of its extent it presents its natural form, being traversed longitudinally by a mode- rate median ridge, on each side of which it is slightly concave trans- versely. It is perforated by a few small irregular vascular foramina. There are no orifices on the inner side of the alveoli; the successional teeth emerge, as in the Crocodiles, from the old sockets, and not, as in certain Mammalia and Fishes, by foramina distinct from them. The second and third alveoli are the largest; the fourth, fifth and sixth the smallest, yet they are more than half the size of the fore- going, with which the rest are nearly equal. The outlets of the alveoli are elliptical, and they form prominences at the side of the jaw, or rather the jaw sinks gently in between the alveoli, and is’ continued into the bony palate without any ridge, the vertical wall bending round to form the horizontal plate. The greatest breadth of the under sur- face of the jaw, taken from the outside of the alveoli, varies only from seven lines across the third pair to nine lines across the eleventh pair of alveoli; and from the narrow base the sides of the jaw converge with a slight convexity outwards at the anterior half of the fragment, but are almost plane at the deeper posterior half, where they seem to have met at one acute superior ridge; indeed such a ridge is con- tinued to within an inch of the fore part of the jaw, where the upper border becomes more obtuse. The whole portion of the jaw appears to consist of one uninter- rupted bone—the premaxillary; the delicate crust of osseous sub- stance, as thin as paper, is traversed by many irregular cracks and fissures, but there is no recognizable suture marking off the limits of a maxillary or nasal bone. ‘he bone offers to the naked eye a fine fibrous structure, so fine as to produce almost a silken aspect, the fibres or strize being longitudinal, and impressed at intervals of from two to six lines by small vascular foramina. Having premised so much with reference to the characters of the 32 Pt. Curerz, I proceed to the description of the distinct species, for which I propose the name of Pterodactylus compressirostris. PTERODACTYLUS COMPRESSIROSTRIS, Owen. (Reptilia, Pl. V. figs. 1, 2 & 3.) This species is represented by two portions of the upper jaw, ob- tained from the Middle Chalk of Kent, the hinder and larger of which includes the beginning of the external nostril (figs. 1 & 2,7). The depth of the jaw at this part is fourteen lines, whence it gradually de- creases to a depth of ten lines at a distance of three inches in advance of this, indicating a jaw as long and slender as in the Pt. longirostris, supposing the same degree of convergence of the straight outlines of the upper and alveolar borders of the jaw to have been preserved to its anterior end: that this was actually the case is rendered most pro- bable by the proportions of the smaller anterior part of the jaw (figs. 1', 2', 3’), obtained from the same pit, if not from the same block of chalk, and which, with a vertical depth of seven lines at its hinder part, decreases to one of six lines in an extent of one inch and a half im advance of that part. The sides of the jaw as they rise from the alveolar border incline a little outwards before they converge to meet at the upper border. This gives a very narrow ovoid section at the fore part of the larger fragment (fig. 2), the greatest diameter at its lower half being four lines, and the sides meeting above at a slightly obtuse ridge. This very gradually widens as the jaw recedes back- wards, where the entireness of the walls of the smoothly convex upper part of the jaw proves that the narrowness of that part is not due to accidental crushing. Had that been the case, the thin parietes arch- ing above from one side to the other would have been cracked. The only evidence of the compression to which the deep sides of the jaw have been subject is seen in the bending in of the wall above the alveoli, close to the upper ridge at the fore part of the fragment. In an extent of alveolar border of three and a half inches there are eleven sockets, the anterior one on the right side retaining the frac- tured base of a tooth: the alveoli are separated by intervals of about one and a half times their own diameter ; their outlets are elliptical, and indicate the compressed form of the teeth: they are about two lines in long diameter at the fore part of this fragment, but diminish as they are placed more backwards, the last two being developed be- neath the external nostril. The bony palate is extremely narrow, and presents in the larger portion (fig. 3) a median smooth convex rising between two longitudinal channels, which are bounded externally by the inner wall of the alveolar border. There is no trace of a median suture in the longitudinal convexity. The breadth of the palate at the back part of the fragment is eight lines; at the fore part it has gra- dually contracted to less than three lines, but it is somewhat crushed here. The naso-palatine aperture, p, commences about half a line in advance of the external nostril, three inches behind the fore part of the larger portion (fig. 3) of the upper jaw; which exemplifies the characteristic extent of the imperforate bony palate formed by the 33 long single premaxillary bone in the genus Pterodactylus. The frag- ment from the more advanced part of the jaw (fig. 3’) contains five pairs of alveoli in an extent of two inches, these alveoli being rather larger and closer together than in the hinder part of the jaw. Owing to the compression which the present portion has undergone, the ori- fices of the alveoli are turned outwards, the bony palate being pressed down between the two rows, and showing, as the probable result of this pressure, a median groove between two longitudinal convex ridges ; but the bone is entire and imperforate. The form of the upper jaw in the present remarkable species differs widely from that of the two previously known species from the chalk, in its much greater elongation and its greater narrowness ; and from the Pt. Cuvieri, in the straight course of the upper border of the jaw, as it gradually converges towards the straight lower border in advanc- ing to the anterior end of the jaw. The alveoli, and consequently the teeth, are relatively smaller in proportion to the depth of the jaw than in the P¢. Cuviert, and are more numerous than in the Pt. gigan- teus ; they are probably also more numerous than in the Pt. Cuvier? ; although, as the whole extent of the jaw anterior to the nostril is not yet known in that species, it would be premature to express a decided Opinion on that point. As we may reasonably calculate from the frag- ments preserved (Pl. II. figs. 1, 2, 3), that the jaw of the Pt. com- pressirostris extended seven inches in front of the nostril, it could not have contained less than twenty pairs of alveoli, according to the num- ber and arrangement of those in the two portions preserved. The osseous walls in both portions present the characteristic com- pactness and extreme thinness of the bones of the skull of the genus: the fine longitudinal strize of the outer surface are more continuous than in the Pz. Cuvieri, in which they seem to be produced by a suc- cession of fine vascular orifices produced into grooves. ‘The conspi- cuous vascular orifices are almost all confined to the vicinity of the alveoli in the Pt. compressirostris. This species belongs, more de- cidedly than the Pt. Cuvieri, to the ‘longirostral’ section of the Pte- rosauria: whether it had an edentulous prolongation of the fore part of the upper and lower jaw remains to be proved. In attempting to form a conception of the total length of the head of the very remarkable species of Pterodactyle represented by the portions of jaw above described, we should be more justified by their form in adopting the proportions of that of the Pt. longirostris than in the case of the Pt. Cuvieri: but allowing that the external nostril may have been of somewhat less extent than in the Pt. longirostris, we may still assign a length of from fourteen to sixteen inches to the skull of the Pterodactyle in question. It could not have been anticipated that the first three portions of Pterodactylian skull—almost the only portions that have yet been discovered in the cretaceous formations—should have presented such well-marked distinctive characters, one from the other, as are de- scribed and illustrated in Mr. Bowerbank’s Memoirs and in the present communication. Such, nevertheless, are the facts: and, however im- probable it may appear, on the doctrine of chances, to those not con- No. CCX XI.—ProcrEDINGS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 34 versant with the fixed relations of osteological and dental characters, that the three corresponding parts of three Pterodactyles for the first time discovered, should be appropriated to three distinct species, I have no other alternative, in obedience to the indications of nature, than to adopt such determination *. 2. DESCRIPTION OF TWO NEW GENERA AND SOME NEW SPECIES or ScutELLIDZ AND ECHINOLAMPIDZ IN THE COLLEC- TION OF THE British Museum. By Jonn Epwarp Gray, Esa., F.R.S., P.B.S. ere. The collection of the British Museum is extremely rich in species of recent Echinoids, and fortunate in possessing long series of different ages of several of the species. Having been recently occupied in arranging and forming a cata- logue of these animals, I transmitted to the ‘Annals of Natural Hi- story’ for February a description of several genera and species of Spatangide. MM. Agassiz and Desor having recently published, in the Mono- graph of Echini and other papers on these animals, all the species of these two families then known to them, and as they had every facility for examining the British Museum specimens, the species now to be described are but few in number. Fam. 1. ScuTELLIDZ. Genus ECHINANTHUS. Among the species which have the base concave, of which £. ro- saceus may be considered the type, are to be added— 1. Ecurnantuus AUSTRALASIA. Vent beneath, at a little distance from the edge ; back very convex * The same criticism or objection may be offered to the conclusions in the text, as the following one, which was called forth by my determinations of the species of Balenodon found in the red crag. ‘The specimens exhibited by Prof. Hens- low were only eleven in number; so that, without allowing anything for the cir- cumstance of each whale having ¢wo tympanic bones, and the probability of some of the above being in pairs, we have the first twelve determinable cetaceous bones discovered in the red crag appropriated to no less than five species. I have no pre- tensions to call in question the decision of Prof. Owen upon osteological grounds, but I must own that I am disposed, upon the doctrine of chances, to consider it hardly probable that these determinations are accurate.”—Scarles V. Wood, Feb. 16, 1844, London Geol. Journal, p. 35. The fifth species is a gratuitous addition to the four described by me, the determinate characters of which have been con- firmed by numerous additional discoveries. Mr. Wood should have remembered, before he attempted to discredit the determinations from anatomy, and to substi- tute the numerical test, that the second mammalian fossil from the oolite, although a lower jaw, like the first, was of a different species, and that of five subsequently discovered unequivocal mammalian remains from Stonesfield, a// are parts of the lower jaw, whilst two of them demonstrate a ¢hird species. Very improbable this to him, on the doctrine of chances; but only showing, as Sir Charles Lyell has remarked, “the fragmentary manner in which the memorials of an ancient terres- trial fauna are handed down to us.” 35 in the middle ; upper margin rather flattened, with a slight concavity at the end of the ambulacra; under side flat near the margin, deeply concave in the middle ; spines of the under side near mouth very fine. Hab. Australia; N.S.W., Brisbane Water. 2. ECHINANTHUS TESTUDINARIUS. Vent beneath a little within the edge, depressed; back slightly raised, evenly convex ; under surface rather concave from the edge. Hab. Indian Ocean; Borneo. 3. EcCHINANTHUS OBLONGUS. Ovate-oblong, elongate, rounded at the end; sides thick, rounded; back depressed round the end of the ambulacra ; crown rather convex; ambulacra ovate, lanceolate, broad, and closed at the end; under side concave nearly to the edge; ambulacral grooves indistinct ; vent near the margin. fab. Philippines ; Siquijor. 4. ECHINANTHUS PRODUCTUS. Shell ovate, elongate, the hinder end produced and flattened, the edge rather thick, thinner behind; the ambulacral petal broad, the bands not quite united at the end; under side concave to the margin ; vent near the margin. Hab. ie 5. Ecuinantuus CoLe. Shell ovate, subpentagonal, depressed; margin thick, rounded; back depressed as far as the end of the ambulacra, and then rather convex in the middle, the under side concave nearly to the edge; ambulacral petal ovate lanceolate, closed at the end; vent near the margin. Hab. Mauritius. Lady Mary Cole. To those which have a flat base may be added— 6. ECHINANTHUS EXPLANATUS. Depressed, much expanded, centre of the back rather convex ; ambulacra occupying rather more than half the space between the vertex and margin, the lines of pores of the anterior pair and posterior odd one far apart at the end; cavity with thin concentric lines of short compressed columns near the margin ; jaws depressed. Hab. Mauritius ? Genus Roruta. The British Museum series induces me to believe that Rotula digi- tata of Agassiz is not distinct from R. Rumphit, as M. Agassiz first considered it to be. Genus Ecurnopiscuvs. I cannot find any permanent difference to distinguish Lobophora bifissa from L. aurita ; they are found together in the same habitat in the Red Sea. 36 Genus MELuiTA. The larger spines on the back of this, the former, and succeeding genus are short, equal in size, and furnished with a more or less sphe- rical head. The Museum series of specimens show a very gradual passage between the Hchini which have been called Mellita testudinaria and M. quinquefora by Agassiz. The species which have six slits on the dise are found on the coast of Tropical America, and others on the shores of the Red Sea ; I be- lieve they form two species, which appear to have been confounded under one name. The American Mellita hexapora has only narrow linear bands of larger tubercles (bearing the larger spines) between the branched lines radiating from the mouth on the under surface, and these lines are very much branched. Mellita similis and M. lobata of Agassiz, also from the West Indies ; the first appears to be only a variety, and the latter a mon- strosity of this species. The Red Sea species I have named MELLITA ERYTHRZA. Shell depressed, with five ambulacra and one posterior interambu- lacral slit; inferior oral grooves branched, branches very slightly divided ; the larger spines and tubercles in a broad band, occupying nearly the whole interambulacral space between the inferior oral grooves. Hab. Red Sea. Sir J. Gardiner Wilkinson. There is a new genus which has the edge of the disk perforated and the vent near the mouth, as in Kehinoglyphus, but differs in the oral grooves being more simple and only branched near the edge, in the lanceolate form of the ambulacra, and in the square form of the tesserze of the ambulacral zones beyond the tip of the ambulacra. Genus Lropta. Body depressed, with a posterior slit and five perforations between the end of the ambulacra and edge ; the marginal ambulacral tesserze squarish, like the interambulacral ones; ambulacra lanceolate, acute at the tip, the anterior one most narrow and longest ; pores united by a groove ; ovarial plate pentangular ; ovarial pores three ; oral grooves simple, slightly impressed, converging towards the margin in front of the ambulacral perforations ; vent near the mouth, in front of the anal perforation, with a group of three or four larger spines between it and the mouth. 1. Leop1a RicHARDSONII. Body suborbicular, slightly depressed, five-lobed, hinder edge trans- verse ; ambulacra lanceolate, not reaching to the discal perforations ; 37 discal perforations ovate, small, the anterior smaller, the hinder largest, with two pairs of rather large tesserze between the ends of the ambu- lacra and the foramen, the upper pair subtrigonal ; oral grooves simply forked near the edge. Hab. West Indies. The single specimen I have seen of this species was presented by Sir John Richardson. It is rather deformed and sinuous on the right side, the hinder lateral perforation being nearly obliterated on that side. In Echinoglyphus the tesseree of the ambulacral bands are broad and band-like between the ambulacra and the ambulacral slits. Genus EcuinoGiypuvs, Van Phelsum. The Encore of Agassiz. The large Brazilian species of this genus appear to be very va- riable. The young specimens have large notches on the edge of the shell, and as the animal increases in size, the marginal edges of these notches more or less approximate together, and sometimes even be- come united, so as to transform the notch into a perforation. M. Agassiz on these variations has formed several species; but the Museum series, from the Brazils and other parts of the east coast of Tropical America, show that they are all mere variations of the spe- cies which Van Phelsum called Lchinoglyphus frondosus, and La- marck Scutella emarginata. I am induced to believe that Scutella quinqueloba of Eschscholtz, Encope Valenciennesii, Encope subclausa, Encope oblonga, and Encope Michelini, are only varieties of this spe- cies : they are all remarkable for the large size and longly-rayed star- like form of the madreporiform plate. Genus FipuvaRia. The following species is peculiar as having an oblong, longitudinal vent. 1. FrpuLARIA OBLONGA. Shell ovate, elongate, ventricose; vent oblong, longitudinal, ac- cording to the axis of the shell. Hab. N. Australia. Fam. 2. EcHINOLAMPID. Genus EcHiINoLAMPAS. The species of this genus may be divided into two sections, accord- ing to the form of the ambulacra. Echinolampas oviformis and its allies have the porous bands of the anterior and other pair of ambulacra equal; the lower side of the shell flat ; the mouth oblong, transverse, with (5) tubercles between the oral ambulacra. The other species have the anterior porous band of the anterior pair of ambulacra shortest ; under side rounded, convex ; mouth ob- long, transverse, large, marked with no tubercles, and only very rudi- mentary oral ambulacra. 38 1. EcCHINOLAMPAS DEPRESSUS. Ovate, depressed, subpentangular ; back regularly convex. Hab. Genus Morrontia. Shell ovate, thin, rather produced in front, rounded behind, co- vered with small tubercles; vertex central, convex; internal cavity quite simple ; ambulacra petaloid, narrow, open at the end; bands rather diverging ; pores rather crowded, united by an oblong groove ; beneath concave, especially near the mouth and vent ; mouth rather large, roundish oblong, transverse, without any ambulacral star ; vent large, transverse, oblong, in the middle of the space between the mouth and hinder edge ; ovarial pores four; madreporiform plate small, central. ? Echinocyamus, sp., Desmoulin. Mortonia, Gray, Cat. Echinoida in Brit. Mus. This genus differs from Echinocyanus in the thinness of the shell, and especially in the ambulacra being larger, more perfect, and in the pores of the ambulacra being united in pairs by a cross groove. It differs from the fossil genus Pygaulus in the vent being inferior, in- termediate between the mouth and edge, and transverse. This genus is named after Dr. Morton, the historian of Northamp- tonshire, who first attempted to arrange the fossil Echini into generic groups. MorrToniA AUSTRALIS. Elliptical, depressed, rather acute in front, rounded. behind, under side concave near the mouth and vent; vent large, oblong, trans- verse, in the centre between the mouth and hinder margin. Fibularia australis, Desm. Tab. Syn. 240. Echinocyamus australis, Agassiz et Desor, /.c. 140. Hab. South Sea. Mallet. February 11, 1851. William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. The following papers were read :— 1. DescRIPTION OF A NEW GENUS AND FAMILY OF CyCLOSAU- RIAN Lizarps, FROM Para. By J. E. Gray, Esa., F.R-S., P.BSS. (Reptilia, Pl. VI.) This interesting Lizard has lately been purchased by the Museum, from a collection of Saurians recently made by Messrs. Wallace and A id during their excursion within a circuit of about 300 miles of ara. Proc.Z.S.Reptilia, VI i \ i] i £ ‘ eo?’ Seen SHEe =En oe! 1 ANADIA OCELLATA. 2.EMMINIA OLIVACEA. 3.IPHISA ELEGANS 4, Hattom Garden. 5 Ford & West, Iathographers, 2 j ay vy a a sh! i iy Por als Tae mm Proc Z.5.Aves. XX J Wolf, lith M & N Hanhart Jmp* SAUROPHAGUS DERBIANUS. Aaxzp 39 It is exceedingly interesting as presenting an entirely new form, different in many particulars from any before observed ; so much so, that I am induced to form for it a new family, to be placed near dina- diade and Cherviolide, which may be thus characterized :— 1. IpHisaD&. Scales of the back, belly, nape and throat smooth, broad, six-sided, transverse, forming a single series’ on each side of the tail, narrow, lanceolate, elongate, regularly keeled, in rings alternating with each other; head shielded; chin shielded; ear open, circular; femoral pores distinct. IpHisa. Head depressed, shielded; anterior frontal single, broad, four- sided; posterior frontals two, small, subtrigonal; vertebral single, rather elongate ; posterior vertebral two, small, five-sided ; occipital three, larger, middle one narrow, longitudinal; superciliary shield 3-3, hinder smaller, anterior smallest; temple with small shields ; labial shields moderate ; rostral and mental broad; chin entirely shielded ; anterior single, transverse, first pair very large, triangular, covering nearly the whole of the chin, second pair small, at the outer hinder angle of the former ; nostrils lateral, in the lower edge of the nasal shield, between it and the labial shield ; eyes large, lateral ; eye- lids scaly?; ears circular, open; nape, back, throat and belly covered with two series of broad, smooth scales; sides rounded, covered with three or four series of six-sided, smooth scales, placed in oblique series ; chest with a collar of five scales, the central one elongate, triangular, the lateral ones four-sided, the outer pair very narrow; preanal shields three, the central one elongate, narrow, subtriangular ; limbs short, weak, covered with broad smooth shields above, the hinder shield beneath ; femoral pores 10-10, distinct, the series nearly united in front of the preanal plates; toes 5-5, unequal, the inner very short, the outer hinder separated from the other by a space like a thumb ; tail elongate, cylindrical, tapering, covered above and below with whorls of narrow, elongate, regular, lanceolate, strongly keeled pointed scales, those of each series alternating with those that suc- ceed and follow it. 1. IpHisa ELEGANS. (Reptilia, Pl. VI. fig. 3.) Olive-brown black marbled; sides darker, white varied ; chin and beneath yellowish white, Hab. Para. 2. DescripTIoNns oF somME New Birps in THE Museum OF THE EARL oF DersBy. By Dr. Kavp. (Aves, Pl. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII.) During my visit to London last year I had the honour to receive an invitation from the Earl of Derby, to visit his collection at Knows- ley Hall, with permission to use the materials I might find there for 40 the monography of Muscicapide on which J was engaged. Of that collection I had already formed very high expectations; but I was agreeably surprised by finding them all surpassed, so great is the rich- ness of this noble collection. It contains more than 14,000 speci- mens of stuffed birds, besides skins, which are not yet numbered. What adds still greater interest to this collection is, that it contains a large number of the original specimens described by Latham and other English authors, of whose writings these specimens are the only explanation. To the pleasure of working in so rich a collection must be added the command of a colossal library, to which not one work of importance is wanting. All this, with the aviaries of magnificent living birds, from every zone of the world, must have the greatest charm for the naturalist, and make Knowsley Hall for him a perfect Eden, which once seen shall never be forgotten. The new birds described here include only one portion of my re- searches, because I could not finish so many genera. The materials of the very rich family of Muscicapid@ are too extensive, for a com- plete elucidation during the limited period of my visit from a foreign country ; I wish my descriptions therefore to be considered only as fragments. The object of my visit to England was to collect materials for a complete monography of the Muscicapide ; but notwithstanding the many favours I received, and the extreme liberality with which my labours were facilitated in every English collection, I must confess with sorrow that I shall never be able to make a complete whole (per- fectly free from objection), with materials collected in different mu- seums. A perfect arrangement can only be achieved by the study of the materials present together, so that at every moment a compari- son may be made between any two or any number of the species. Were it my good fortune to assemble the whole materials of one family in my rooms at Darmstadt, one winter only would be neces- sary to finish each family in such a manner as to satisfy the require- ments of modern science. Were any one museum willing to accord me the whole materials in its possession, it is probable that all the supplementary species not contained in that collection would be readily furnished by other mu- seums, as the absence of a few species for a short period would be of little or no importance. That we can only climb to the summit of our science by means of well-made monographies, there can be no possible doubt ; and I attach a higher value to a monography constructed on philosophical prin- ciples, than to the best fauna of any single part of the world: for only by a strict comparison of the birds of the five parts of the globe can we know what is a family, a subfamily, genus, species and sub- species. Only in this way—a difficult way no doubt—can we learn the true harmony of nature; and thus shall we be filled with admi- ration, when we see that every species, genus, family or order repre- sents a certain type, and must receive its place in a scheme of classi- fication according to fixed laws, which man must discover, but over which he has no control. 4] This charm can never belong to merely descriptive ornithology, because even the best descriptions are only like mosaic stones, which, when placed without rules, or arranged according to false principles, give us only a scattered mass of heterogeneous materials, or a picture destitute of truth. These claims I have urged over and over again in my dissertations, but hitherto without effect. When shall the time arrive when a catholic spirit shall guide the destinies of science, and lead onward to that triumph of true knowledge, in which every director of a mu- seum, and every student of the works of nature, may take his part ? At present it is impossible that a naturalist can without help arrange the whole materials of one class in his museum. Our mu- seums are little more than great exhibitions for the people, who look too often only to colour, instead of being stores of nature’s trea- sures, ready to be communicated to every naturalist who has proved himself worthy of the name. Every museum ought to accord freely and liberally the wished-for materials, for this is the cheapest way in which a family can be properly named and accurately classed. The common excuse that the lent materials might come to harm, is little more than an excuse. Time and destructive insects will do the harm, without the slightest advantage to science. Nisus (seu ACCIPITER) CHIONOGASTER, Kaup. Diagnosis.—Above dark blue grey, beneath pure white. Description.—The male is less than the Nis. fringillarius. Above dark blue grey, the crown, lorum, and a stripe over the eye- and ear- cover feathers more approaching to black; ear-covering, cheek and crop with fine black quill lines; tail with three black bands and a broader band at the end, which is white bordered ; the underside of the tail has the bands more silver-grey ; the first tail-feather with five bands before the large end-band; the wings on the inner side with four bands before the large end-band. Before the emarginations the bands are grey, and after them whiter. The larger female with a white eye-stripe, and broader black quill stripe on the crop; the cover feathers of the tibia with a fine rufous tint. According to the ticket of M. de Lattre, the iris of the female is orange, and that of the male dark brown, like burnt sienna. These two specimens were procured by M. de Lattre in Coban, in the year 1843. Dimensions in millimetres.— 3 Q IGA eset ehcke Joho cxtetesea>' AO’ pice. aerate LEG eee Senet elder LG we