164 HISTORY OF THE WOEKS OF CUVIER 



terrestrial tortoises. The order of hatracMans has lint one fossu species : the 

 gigantic salamander of (Eningen, or the pretended fossil man — the homo diluvii 

 testis of Scheuchzer. The order of reptiles which presents the most estra- 

 ordinaiy fossil species is that of the saurians. In the first place, most of them 

 were gigantic. A first species, the great samian of Manheim — the lacerta gigantea 

 of Soemmering, the gcosaicrus of M. Cuvier — was twelve or thirteen leet in 

 length ; a second, the mosasanrus, the great saurian of the quarries of Maes- 

 tricht, long taken for a crocodile, was more than twenty-four ; and a third, truly 

 gigantic, the megalosaurus, was more than seventy. Here, then, we have a liz- 

 ard which surpassed the largest crocodiles, and in size even approached the 

 whale. This, it is known, was discovered by Dr. Buckland, in the oolitic beds 

 of Stonesfield, near Oxford. M. Cuvier further makes known some remains of 

 the fossil monitors of Thuringia, of a great saurian at Honlieur, of a gigantic 

 saurian in the quarries of Caen, &c. 



The genus of pterodactyls^ or flying lizards, though not remarkable for its 

 size, is eminently so for its singular structure : a very short tail, a neck very long, 

 a bird's beak, a finger of the anterior extremity prodigiously elongated, and thus 

 elongated to support a sort of wing. There are two species of pterodactyls : 

 one of the size of a bat, the other rather larger. It is needless to add that the 

 genus is wholly extinct. But something still more strange in point of structure, 

 is that presented by two other genera of saurians, both likewise extinct: the 

 iclithyosaiirus and plcsiosaurus; the former uniting at once the snout of a dol- 

 phin, the teeth of a crocodile, the head and sternum of a lizard, paws of the 

 cetacea, but to the number of four, and the vertebrae of a fish ; the latter join- 

 ing to these paws the head of a lizard, and a neck of such inordinate length that 

 more than thirty vertebrae are counted therein. Both these extraordinary animals 

 were found for the first time in England, but have since been discovered in Ger- 

 many and France. The discovery of the first of these genera was due to Sir 

 Everard Home ; that of the last to Mr. Conybeare. Already four species of 

 the ichthyosaurus are known, and five of the plesiosaunis. 



These reptiles, so numerous and so varied, crocodiles, tortoises, the vast sal- 

 amander, the strange or gigantic saurians, joined with Crustacea, mollusks, zoo- 

 phytes, fishes, marine mammals formed the first animal colonists which occu- 

 pied the globe ; the second were those of the epoch of the palseotherium ; the 

 third, those of the epoch of the mastodon ; the fourth are those of the actual 

 epoch. Without counting the last, there have been three distinct eras of animal 

 life : that of the reptiles, that of the palgeotheriums, that of the mastodons ; and 

 after each successive family of living beings, the sea has returned to repossess 

 itself of the land, retreating afterwards in favor of a new order of creatures; 

 for marine strata constantly succeed to the terrestrial strata, and animals which 

 have lived in the sea constantly succeed to animals which have lived on dry land. 



Such is the assemblage of fossil species, reconstructed by M. Cuvier. We 

 have seen the precise laws on which this reconstruction is founded. The high- 

 est of these laws is the principle of the correlation of forms; a principle by means 

 of which we are enabled, to a certain point, to determine from each part all the 

 others ; for each part has a necessary relation to all the others, and all to each. 

 Thus, and to cite again a new example of this great law of organic correlations, 

 the form of the teeth, and even, in certain cases, the form of a single tooth, gives 

 that of the condyle of the jaw ; the form of this condyle gives that of the 

 glenoid cavity which receives it ; this condyle, this cavity, give the zygomatic 

 arch, the temporal foss, in which the muscles are attached which move the jaw. 

 The form of all these parts, that is to say, the mode of manducation, gives the 

 stomach, the intestines, that is to say, the mode of digestion ; this again gives the 

 mode of prehension, or the form of the feet ; for if the animal is herbivorous, it 

 has no need of the feet except to support its body, it will suffice for it to have 

 hoofs ; and if it is carnivorous, it will necessarily require, on the contrary, divided 

 feet, that is to say digits for seizing its prey and tetiring it. 



