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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been full. Fishes of the gar-jiike pattern (and yet not like that either, 

 for they Avere of no one pattern in particular), with lungs far enough 

 developed to enable them to carrj^ on respiration in the air as well as 

 in the water, were on the whole most abundant. In some particulars 

 these creatures stood very low in the scale of fish-life, and yet in 

 others they outranked any fishes with which we are familiar. The 

 curious mixing of class characters produced results always interesting, 

 though sometimes ludicrous. The incongruity of these combinations 

 seems to culminate in that absurd creature, neither one thing nor the 

 other, from the coal-fields of Bavaria, which had the head, gills, back- 

 bone, and body generally, of a fish mounted on the limbs of a reptile 

 (Fig. 14). Then there were real reptiles in the forests and coal- 

 marshes ; at least there were animals that by way of courtesy we may 

 call reptiles, for they breathed air only, they were provided with true 

 reptilian limbs, and the body was incased in a complete outfit of the 



Fig. H. Aechegosaurus. 



most approved reptilian armor. But in some respects they were not rep- 

 tiles : the skeleton was imperfectly developed ; the spinal column was 

 such as belongs, of right, only to fishes ; while the head and its articula- 

 tion with the body, considered alone, would place them with the frog and 

 salamander among the naked amphibians. These reptile-like creatures 

 seem to have divided very early in their history, so as to follow two dis- 

 tinct lines of development : one group of small symmetrical forms, light 

 of foot and swift of motion, frequented the higher portions of the land, 

 and sought its food among the tribes of insects ; the other, with strong 

 limbs and jaws, with heavy body and aquatic habit, played the part 

 of crocodiles. Now, these crocodiles were the lords of creation. All 

 the Avhile our coal was forming they stood at the head of created 

 things. Had any human intelligence, with skill to read the geological 

 record of all preceding time, been permitted to look in ujion the Car- 

 boniferous world, he might well have believed that the end had come. 

 He would have seen evidences of decay in many of the living tribes, 

 and Avould have noticed that in all the past there were signs and 

 promises and apparent preparations that seemed to point to these very 

 tribes, and particularly to the crocodiles, as the complete realization 

 and fulfillment of all creative designs. His human blindness to the 



