NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 241 



skilful comparative anatomist can never mistake sucli a 

 bone for that of any other race of animals. Professor 

 Owen and other palaeontologists have largely profited by 

 their knowledge of this peculiarity, as appears from the 

 grand work on British fossil reptiles by the Professor, now 

 in the course of publication.* 



From the great difference in the organization of this 

 class, a great variety of motility was to be expected : 



The motion of reptiles is as various as their structure, and 

 exhibits a great diversity, particularly in the modes of progression. 

 The slow march of the land tortoises, the paddling of the turtles, 

 the sAvimming and walking of the crocodiles, the newts, and the 

 protei, the agihty of the lizards, the rapid serpentine advance of the 

 snakes, the leaping of the frogs, offer a widely-extended scale of 

 motion. If we add the vaulting of the dragons, and the flying of 

 the pterodactyles, there is hardly any mode of animal progression 

 which is not to be found among the reptiles.f 



When we examine the different systems published by 

 zoologists with reference to the reptiles, we find, with 

 few exceptions, the first place assigned to the chelonians 

 or tortoises; and before we proceed to notice the other 

 forms, let us rapidly survey this highly-interesting order. 



The land-tortoises first claim attention. 



2Sth July. — I went to see the great tortoise {Testudo 

 elephantopus) presented by the Queen to the Zoological 

 Society of London, and arrived at the Garden in the 

 Regent's Park between nine and ten o'clock. The 

 morning had been rainy, but the sun bravely struggled 

 through the clouds, which cleared away before his radiant 

 presence, as the story-book has it, and I saw the vener- 

 able reptile in its paddock, before the newly-erected hut 

 built for its reception near the otter's pond. It is the 

 largest I ever beheld. The ancient seemed to be in a 



* A History of British Fossil Reptiles. By Richard Owen, 

 F.R.S., &c. 4to. London : Printed for the Author. 

 t Penny Cyclopeedia, vol. xix. p. 410. 

 M 



