162 EXTINGT “MONSTERS 
teeth belonged. Being hampered by arduous professional duties 
in a provincial town, remote from museums and libraries, Dr. 
Mantell transmitted to the Royal Society figures and drawings of 
the specimens, and, at the suggestion of the Rev. W. D. Cony- 
beare, adopted the name Iguanodon (Iguana-tooth) for the extinct 
reptile, a name which pointed to the resemblance of its teeth to 
those of the modern iguana, a land-lizard some three to five feet 
long, inhabiting many parts of America and the West Indies, 
and rarely met with north or south of the tropics. 
In all living reptiles the insects or vegetables on which they 
feed are seized by the tongue or teeth, and swallowed whole, so 
that a movable covering to the jaws, similar to the lips and cheeks 
of the mammalia, is not necessary, either for seizing and retain- 
ing food or for subjecting it by muscular movements to the action 
of the teeth. It is the power of perfect mastication possessed by 
the Iguanodon that is so strange, for it implies a most remarkable 
approach in extinct reptiles to characters possessed now only by 
herbivorous mammalia, such as horses, cows, deer, etc. From 
this and other strange characters seen in the Dinosaurs, we learn 
that they in their day played the part of our modern mammals, 
whether carnivorous or herbivorous, and showed remarkable 
approach to the mammalian type, which of course is a much 
higher one. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that Dr. 
Mantell’s contemporaries, with the exception of Cuvier, found in 
these teeth an awkward puzzle and refused to believe that they 
belonged to a reptile. Such a notion was at variance with all 
previous experience; and we naturally form our conclusions 
largely by experience. The importance of discovering, if possible, 
a portion of the jaw of an Iguanodon was fully recognised by 
Dr. Mantell, and, urged by the encouragement he had received 
from the illustrious Cuvier, he eagerly sought for the required 
