The hind limb is exceptionally long in proportion to the back. This is conspicuous in the skeletons of the short-tailed Pterodactyles, and is also seen in Dimorphodon. In Rhamphorhynchus the hind limb is relatively much shorter, so that the animal, when on all fours, may have had an appearance not unlike a Bat in similar position. The limb is exceptionally short in the little _Ptenodracon brevirostris_. The bones of the hind limb are exceptionally interesting. One remarkable feature common to all the specimens is the great elongation of the shin bones relatively to the thigh bones. The femur is sometimes little more than half the length of the tibia, and always shorter than that bone. The proportions are those of mammals and birds. Some mammals have the leg shorter than the thigh, but mammals and birds alone, among existing animals, have the proportions which characterise Pterodactyles. The foot appears to have been applied to the ground not always as in a bird, but more often in the manner of reptiles, or mammals in which the digits terminate in claws. THE FEMUR [Illustration: FIG. 33. THE FEMUR On the right is a front view of femur of a bear. In the middle are front and side views of the femur of Ornithocheirus. On the left is the femur of Echidna. These comparisons illustrate the mammalian characters of the Pterodactyle thigh bone] The thigh bone, on account of the small size of many of the specimens, is not always quite clear evidence as an indication of technical resemblance to other animals. The bone is always a little curved, has always a rounded, articular head, and rounded distal condyles. Its most remarkable features are shown in the large, well-preserved specimens from the Cambridge Greensand. The rounded, articular head is associated with a constricted neck to the bone, followed by a comparatively straight shaft with distal condyles, less thickened than in mammals. No bird is known, much less any reptile, with a femur like Ornithocheirus. Only among Mammals is a similar bone known with a distinct neck; and only a few mammals have the exceptional characters of the rounded head and constricted neck at all similar to the Cretaceous Pterodactyles. A few types, such as the higher apes, the Hyrax, and animals especially active in the hind limb, have a femur at all resembling the Pterodactyle in the pit for the obturator externus muscle, behind the trochanter major, such as is seen in a small femur from Ashwell. The femur varies in different genera, so as to suggest a number of mammalia rather than any particular animal for comparison. These approximations may be consequences of the ways in which the bones are used. When functional modifications of the skeleton are developed, so as to produce similar forms of bones, the muscles to which they give attachment, which act upon the bones, and determine their growth, are substantially the same. In the _Pterodactylus longirostris_ the femur corresponds in length to