"The Dinosauria, a group of extinct reptiles, containing the genera Iguanodon, Hadrosaurus, Megalosaurus, Poikilopleuron, Scelidosaurus, Plateosaurus, &c., which occur throughout the whole series of the Mesozoic rocks, and are for the most part of gigantic size, appear to me to furnish the required conditions.
"In none of these animals are the skull or the cervical region of the vertebral column completely known, while the sternum and the manus have not yet been obtained in any of the genera. In none has any trace of a clavicle been observed.
"With regard to the characters which have been positively determined, it has been ascertained that:—
"1. From four to six vertebræ enter into the composition of the sacrum, and become connected with the ilia in a manner which is partly ornithic, partly reptilian.
"2. The ilia are prolonged forwards, in front of the acetabulum, as well as behind it; and the resemblance to the bird's ilium thus produced is greatly increased by the widely arched form of the acetabular margin of the bone, and the extensive perforation of the floor of the actabulum. The other two components of the os innominatum have not been observed actually in place; indeed, only one of them is known at all, but that one is exceedingly remarkable from its strongly ornithic character. It is the bone which has been called 'clavicle' in Megalosaurus and Iguanodon by Cuvier and his successors, though the sagacious Buckland had hinted its real nature[1]. But these bones are not in the least like the clavicles of any known animal, while they are extremely similar to the ischia of such a bird as an ostrich; and in the only instance in which they have been found in tolerably undisturbed relation with other parts of the skeleton, namely, in the Maidstone Iguanodon, they lie, one upon each side of the body, close to the ilia. I hold it to be certain that these bones belong to the pelvis, and not to the shoulder-girdle, and I think it probable that they are ischia; but I do not deny that they may be pubes.
- ↑ The so-called "coracoid" of Megalosaurus is the ilium, I am indebted to Prof. Phillips, and to the splendid collection of Megalosaurian remains which he has formed at Oxford, for most important evidence touching this reptile.
[I do not know how it came about that I have here confused Dr. Buckland's suggestions with one another. In his memoir "On the Megalosaurus" (Tr. Geol. Soc. 2nd ser. vol. ii. p. 396), Dr. Buckland says:—
"The bone represented in fig. 3 is the outside view of the ilium, slightly concave. The inner surface is slightly convex, and shows marks of articulation with the sacrum."
The bone in question is that of which Cuvier makes the remark quoted by Prof. Phillips.
All subsequent writers have followed Cuvier's determination, which was wrong, and ignored Buckland's, which was not only quite right, but the key to a great deal that is most important in Dinosaurian organization. The so-called "clavicle" was so named by Buckland himself. Cuvier hesitates to recognize it as such, inclining to the belief that it may be the fibula. According to Prof. Owen the presence of this clavicle is one of the chief features of the Dinosauria. "The chief marks of difference from the Crocodile structure of the scapular arch and of resemblance to the Lacertian type is the presence of a distinct pair of clavicles."—Fossil Reptilia of the Wealden Formation, p. 33.]
