Note 586 — Chapter XVI

See Brit. Assoc. Report, 1841, and Memoirs, Palæont. Soc.

[587] In Crocodiles the abdominal region is strengthened by slender ribs (hæmapophyses, Prof. Owen), that are affixed to a ligamentous extension of the cartilaginous sternum, analogous to the linea alba in man; and the Hylæosaurus appears to have possessed a similar development of the costal elements, for I observed many fragments of long, slender, sub-cylindrical rib-like bones whilst chiselling off the stone from this species, and portions of similar bones occur in the stone around the spinal column from Bolney. In the Maidstone Iguanodon there are likewise some long slender bones of this character, which I think must be prolongations of the ordinary dorsal ribs.