Now, until recently it has generally been supposed by evolutionists that those ancient flying reptiles, the pterodactyles, or forms allied to them, were the progenitors of the class of birds; and certain parts of their structure especially support this view. Allusion is here made to the bladebone (scapula), and the bone which passes down from the shoulder-joint to the breast-bone (viz. the coracoid). These bones are such remarkable anticipations of the same parts in ordinary (_i.e._ carinate) birds {71} that it is hardly possible for a Darwinian not to regard the resemblance as due to community of origin. This resemblance was carefully pointed out by Professor Huxley in his "Hunterian Course" for 1867, when attention was called to the existence in _Dimorphodon macronyx_ of even that small process which in birds gives attachment to the upper end of the merrythought. Also Mr. Seeley[53] has shown that in pterodactyles, as in birds, the optic lobes of the brain were placed low down on each side--"lateral and depressed." Nevertheless, the view has been put forward and ably maintained by the same Professor,[54] as also by Professor Cope in the United States, that the line of descent from reptiles to birds has not been from ordinary reptiles, through pterodactyle-like forms, to ordinary birds, but to the struthious ones from certain extinct reptiles termed Dinosauria; one of the most familiarly known of which is the Iguanodon of the Wealden formation. In these Dinosauria we find skeletal characters unlike those of ordinary (_i.e._ carinate) birds, but closely resembling in certain points the osseous structure of the struthious birds. Thus a difficulty presents itself as to the explanation of the three following relationships:--(1) That of the Pterodactyles with carinate birds; (2) that of the Dinosauria with struthious birds; (3) that of the carinate and struthious birds with each other. Either birds must have had two distinct origins whence they grew to their present conformity, or the very same skeletal, and probably cerebral characters must have spontaneously and independently arisen. Here is a dilemma, either horn of which bears a threatening aspect to the exclusive supporter of "Natural Selection," and between which it seems somewhat {72} difficult to choose.