The Ornithosauria / An elementary study of the bones of Pterodactyles made from fossil remains found in the Cambridge Upper Greensand, and arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge

by H. G. Seeley

The bones were mostly of a paper or card-like thinness, and were originally hollow like the thin bones of birds. In the jaws of other animals, and in the sea, they were easily fractured, so that proximal ends and distal ends and shafts and split bones abound, while perfect bones are almost unknown. Even those bones like the carpals, which almost retain their entirety, invariably show indications of having been rolled on the sea-shore among the nodules of phosphate of lime with which they now occur, in their angular margins being rounded, and in the removal of slender processes. The rock in which these fossils are found is a thin bed of chalky marl which is heavily charged with dark-green grains of Glauconite, and is quarried largely, and entirely dug away to be deprived of the dark-brown nodules of phosphate of lime with which it is stored. In digging and in the subsequent washing, the workmen, stimulated by an ample reward, pick out the fossils as they are discovered. They are separated easily from the matrix of investing marl, so that every aspect of each bone is seen, except for the occasionally adherent oysters and the masses of phosphate of lime, with which material the bones are also filled. Hence these remains afford facilities for the study of the joints such as no other specimens have presented; and from their large size and comparatively great numbers, render easy the labour of the student who seeks to contrast them with the bones of other animals.

The osteological collection has been formed without regard to species or genera, and arranged to exhibit the structure and organization of the tribe of animals. So far as possible each bone, as humerus, femur, &c., has its variations of structures and form contrasted on a single tablet. The series comprises the following bones:

Fore-part of sternum.
Coracoid (perfect).
Scapula (nearly perfect).
Humerus (perfect).
?Radius (proximal end).
Radius (distal end).
?Ulna (proximal end).
Ulna (distal end).
Proximal carpal.
Distal carpal.
Lateral carpal.
Wing-metacarpal (proximal and distal ends).
First phalange (proximal and distal ends).
Second phalange (proximal end).
Metacarpal or metatarsal (distal end).
Claw phalange.
Os innominatum (parts of ilium, ischium, and pubis).
Femur (perfect).
?Tibia (proximal end).
Atlas and axis.
Cervical vertebræ.
Dorsal vertebræ.
Sacrum and sacral vertebræ.
Caudal vertebræ.
Lower jaw (dentary and articular ends).
Premaxillary bones, &c.
Teeth.
Quadrate bone (distal end with quadrato-jugal).
Ethmoid with basi-sphenoid.
Occipital and parietal segments of skulls.
Basi-occipital and basi-temporal.
Cast of brain-cavity.

They are exhibited in Compartments a, b, c of the Table-case of Cabinet J. The letter F in a circle is placed against figured specimens.

History.

The Cambridge Pterodactyles first attain prominence in scientific literature in the year 1859. Professor Owen had figured (plate 32, fig. 6-8) fragments of bones in the Palæontographical Society's Monograph for 1851; the distal end of a large ulna (fig. 6); the shaft of a phalange of the wing-finger, probably the first (fig. 7); and the upper portion of the shaft of a small humerus showing part of the radial crest (fig. 8). Inadvertently the last specimen was referred to the Lower Greensand. But although fragments of humerus of Pterodactyle and vertebræ of Pterodactyloid animals have in the last few years been gathered from the Potton Sands, those deposits were believed to be barren of fossils when Prof. Owen wrote; and all the Pterodactyles yet made known from near Cambridge were collected from the Cambridge Upper Greensand.

Among the earliest successful collectors were Mr James Carter, the Rev. H. G. Day, St John's Coll.; Prof. G. D. Liveing, St John's Coll.; the Rev. T. G. Bonney, St John's Coll.; and Mr Lucas Barrett, Trin. Coll.; and the Rev. Prof. Sedgwick, Trin. Coll., on behalf of the Woodwardian Museum. Mr Day and Mr Bonney both presented every specimen from their cabinets which could enrich the University collection. And in the last ten years the Woodwardian Museum has acquired, through the skillful collecting of the Messrs Farren, the present materials. The associated sets of bones were formed by William and Robert Farren, who, obtaining the specimens from day to day as they were discovered, were enabled to put together such parts of the skeleton as remained together on the sea-bottom. These collections will hereafter be used for the elucidation of species. They are the only materials which can give the proportions of the Cambridge Ornithosaurians, and the contrast of aspect which distinguished the living animals from those from other rocks.

The other collections of these fossils are those of Mr William Reed and Mr J. F. Walker at York, the Museum of Practical Geology, and the British Museum.

The Woodwardian specimens as collected were placed in the hands of Prof. Owen, and were first made known in the Professor's lectures on reptiles and birds delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology in 1858. In that year Prof. Owen communicated to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and printed in their Report, the matter of the memoir which was published with plates by the Palæontographical Society in 1859. In this latter year Prof. Owen communicated to the Royal Society an account of the vertebral column of Pterodactyles. In 1859 Prof. Owen also produced a classification of recent and fossil reptiles at the meeting of the British Association, in which the order Pterosauria appears with new characters—such as the pneumatic structure of most of the bones—drawn from Cambridge specimens. In 1860 Prof. Owen produced another memoir on Pterodactyles, which was published by the Palæontographical Society. A brief account of the tribe appeared about the same time in the Professor's Palæontology.

In these writings are descriptions of the various parts of the vertebral column. Their procœlian centra are described, and the pneumatic foramina are noticed and supposed to have communicated with air-cells. They are compared with birds, and distinguished from birds; but although the order is classed with reptiles no contrast with reptiles is made. Other bones described are a basi-occipital, and a doubtful bone, then thought to be a frontal, but which is more like the neural region of the sacrum.