CHAPTER XI 
FLYING DRAGONS 
** Geology does better in reclothing dry bones and revealing lost creations 
than in tracing veins of lead or beds of iron.” —Ruskn. 
THE great Ocean of Air was not uninhabited during the long ages 
of the Mesozoic era, when fishes swarmed in the seas, and reptiles, 
such as we have attempted to describe in the last five chapters, 
trod the earth, or swam across lakes and rivers. With such an 
exuberance of life in various forms, it would indeed have been 
strange if the atmosphere had only been tenanted by humble 
little insects like dragon-flies, locusts, or butterflies and moths, 
all of which we know were living then. 
Now, the record of the rocks tells us that one great order of 
reptiles somehow acquired the power of flying, and flitted about 
as bats or flying-foxes do now. Since they were undoubtedly 
reptiles—in spite of certain resemblances to birds—we have 
ventured to call them “flying dragons,” as others have done. 
The notion of a flying reptile may perhaps seem strange, or even 
impossible to some persons; but no one has a right to say such 
and such a thing “ cannot be,” or is “contrary to Nature,” for the 
world is full of wonderful things such as we should have con- 
sidered impossible had we not seen them with our eyes. Charles 
Kingsley, in his delightful fairy tale, The Water-Babies, makes 
some humorous remarks on that matter, which we may quote 
here, He says, “Did not learned men too hold, till within the 
