Further Evidence of the Affinity between the Dinosaurian Reptiles and Birds

Abstract

O n my way to Birmingham, in October 1867, I chanced to meet with Prof. Phillips; and mentioning some palæontological inquiries, chiefly relating to the Ichthyosauria (with which I then happened to be occupied), he very kindly urged me, as I returned to London, to pay a visit to the collection under his charge in the University Museum at Oxford. I did so; but as we were traversing the museum towards the Ichthyosaurian cases, we stopped at that containing the Megalosaurian remains, and I may say with Francesca— It is indeed a wonderful collection, ample enough to occupy the working hours of many a day; and it was particularly attractive to me, as some difficulties in the organization of Megalosaurus and its allies had long perplexed me. As Prof. Phillips directed my attention to one after the other of the precious relics, my eye was suddenly caught by what I had never before seen, namely the complete pectoral arch of the great reptile, consisting of a scapula and a coracoid ankylosed together. Here was a tangle at once unravelled. The coracoid was totally different from the bone described by Cuvier, and by all subsequent anatomists, under that name. What then was the latter bone? Clearly, if it did not belong to the shoulder-girdle it must form a part of the pelvis; and, in the pelvis, the ilium at once suggested itself as the only possible homologue. Comparison with skeletons of reptiles and of birds, close at hand, showed it to be.