8o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



DRAGONS, FABLED AND REAL. 



By M. MAUEICE MAINDEON. 



THE geological age of reptiles was marked by various curious, 

 seemingly only partly perfected forms, which appear to have 

 passed away without leaving any permanent descent. To it be- 

 long the relics of those flying reptiles, the Rhamphorhynchus and 

 the Pterodactyls. The type of the pterodactylean wing was not 

 at all like that of the wings of birds, which were yet to come, and 

 were beginning to appear when the reptilian era approached its 

 close. The apparatus for flying was not formed by any essential 

 modification of the limbs, but rather, like that of the bats, was 

 constituted by a broad fold of the skin, attached to and sustained 

 by the digits of the fore-limb. The last or outer digit, greatly 

 elongated, formed a rigid side bordering and sustaining the para- 

 chute, which was further attached along the full length of the 

 arm, and in the Rhampliorhynchus was continued to the tail. 

 These animals also had a long tail ending in a membrane, sus- 

 tained by rigid ribs, that served as a kind of rudder. 



There were giants and dwarfs among the pterosaurians. Of 

 the former were the Pteranodus, of the Kansas Cretaceous ; and 

 of the latter, little Jurassic pterodactyls, which were not larger 

 than a lark. 



The hieratic traditions of dragons appear at first sight to have 

 been inspired* by the singular forms of these monsters; and it 

 would be easy enough to suppose that the simple-minded figure- 

 makers of the middle ages were acquainted with the pterosauri- 

 ans, and patterned after them in sculpturing the dragons and 

 griffins which they set up at church entrances. But they did 

 not. Man's imagination is always capable of associating different 

 forms into individuals, and even of inventing new forms. That 

 the dragons of art were such inventions is proved by the awkward 

 attachments which the artists affixed to their strange conceptions. 

 Some of their creatures, if living, would have had a hard task to 

 fly with the wings they gave them ; and others would have been 

 greatly embarrassed to make use of all the appendages with which 

 a hand more lavish than wise had endowed them. 



Movement by flying, the realization of which is still only a 

 dream for man, has had a charm for the mystics of all ages. All 

 religions concur in the common fancy of putting wings on the 

 shoulders of their gods, genii, cherubim, angels, and seraphim. 

 There were necessary for the transportation of such forms, for 

 company and service, and to do battle for them, animals having 

 forms likewise supernatural and agile ; whence hippogriffs, 



