xin BACKBONED ANIMALS 281 



which wins love, and the down which lines the 

 warm nest ; scales speak of armour and cold-blooded 

 stealth. 



But we need not depreciate reptiles, nor deny the justice 

 of that insight which has found in them the fittest emblems 

 of the omnipotence of the earth. If Athene of the air 

 possesses the birds, surely the power of the dust is in the 

 grovelling snakes. Few colour arrangements are more 

 beautiful than those which adorn the lithe lizards. The 

 tortoise is an example of passive energy, self-contained 

 strength, and all but impenetrable armature. The croco- 

 diles more than the others recall the strong ferocity of the 

 ancient extinct dragons. 



It is interesting to remember the long-tailed toothed 

 Archceopteryx, the predecessor of modern birds, and to 

 recall the giant sloths which preceded the modern Edentate 

 mammals ; but it is essential to include in our apprecia- 

 tion of Reptiles the giant dragons of their golden age. 

 Most modern forms are pigmies beside an Ichthyosaurus 

 25 feet long, a Megalosaurus of 30, a Titanosaurus of 50, 

 or an Atlanta saurus of 60, all fairly broad in proportion. 

 We have still pythons and crocodiles and other reptiles 

 of huge size, and we do not deny Grant Allen's remark 



o / 



that a good blubbery ' right whale ' could give points 

 to any deinosaur that ever moved upcn Oolitic conti- 

 nents, but the fact remains that in far back times (Triassic, 

 Jurassic, and Cretaceous) reptiles had a golden age with 

 a predominance of forms larger than any living members 

 of the class. Besides size, however, the ancient saurians 

 had another virtue, apparently possessed by both small 

 and great they were progressive. For it seems certain 

 that birds had their origin from feverish saurians (prob- 

 ably Ornithischian Deinosaurs) which acquired some 

 power of flight, and it is also possible that some mother 

 reptile, retaining her young for a long time within her 

 womb, was the forerunner of the mammalian race. 



There arc many orders of extinct reptiles Ichthyosaurs, 

 Plesiosaurs, Deinosaurs, Pterosaurs, and other saurians. 

 The living forms belong to five orders the lizards, the 

 snakes, the tortoises, the crocodiles, and the archaic 



