Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/181

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As the bones in the wing of the Pterodactyle thus agree in number and proportion with those in the fore foot of the Lizard, so do they differ entirely from the arrangement of the bones which form the expansors of the wing of the Bat.

The total number of toes in the Pterodactyles is usually four; the exterior, or little toe, being deficient; if we compare the number and proportion of the joints in these four toes with those of Lizards, (Pl. 22, F, G, H, I,) we find the agreement as to number, to be not less perfect than it is in the fingers; we have, in each case, two joints in the first, or great toe, three in the second, four in the third, and five in the fourth. As to proportion also, the penultimate joint is always the longest, and the ante penultimate, or last but two, the shortest; these relative proportions are also precisely the same, as in the feet of Lizards. The apparent

rostris, (Pl. 22, N, 44, 45,) the fifth finger was elongated to expand the wing, we should infer from the normal number of joints in the fifth finger of Lizards being only three, that this wing finger had but three joints. In the fossil itself the two first joints only are preserved, so that his conjectural addition of a fourth joint to the fifth finger, in the restored figure, (Pl. 22, A, 47,) seems inconsistent with the analogies, that pervade the structure of this, and of every other species of Pterodactyle, as described by Cuvier.