FIG. 64. CYCNORHAMPHUS FRAASI
RESTORATION OF THE FORM OF THE BODY
CHAPTER XV
ORNITHOSAURS FROM THE UPPER SECONDARY ROCKS
When staying at Swanage, in Dorsetshire, many years ago, I had the rare good fortune to obtain from the Purbeck Beds the jaw of a Pterodactyle, which had much in common in plan with the Cycnorhamphus Fraasii from the Lithographic Slate, which is preserved at Stuttgart. The tooth-bearing part of this lower jaw is 8 inches long as preserved, extending back 3 inches beyond the symphysis portion in which the two sides are blended together. It is different from Professor Fraas's specimen in having the teeth carried much further back, and in the animal being nearly twice as large. This fragment of the jaw is little more than 1 foot long, which is probably less than half its original length. A vertebra nearly 5 inches long, which is more than twice the length of the longest neck bones in the Stuttgart fossil, is the only indication of the vertebral column. Professor Owen described a wing finger bone from these Purbeck Beds, which is nearly 1 foot long. He terms it the second of the finger. It may be the third, and on the hypothesis that the animal had the proportions of the Solenhofen fossil just referred to, the first wing finger bone of the English Purbeck Pterodactyle would have exceeded 2 feet in length, and would give a length for the wing finger of about 5 feet 3 inches. For this animal the name Doratorhynchus was suggested, but at present I am unable to distinguish it satisfactorily from Cycnorhamphus, which it resembles in the forms both of the neck bones and of the jaw. Very small Pterodactyles are also found in the English Purbeck strata, but the remains are few, and scattered, like these larger bones.
FIG. 65. THE LONGEST KNOWN NECK VERTEBRA
From the Purbeck Beds of Swanage. (Half natural size)
