DINOSA URS. 



85 



saurus, were small, and some of the fingers ended in powerful 

 claws, which no doubt it used to good purpose. 



Perhaps the most remarkable of all the Dinosaurs was a diminu- 

 tive creature only two feet in length, which was related to those 

 we have just been considering, and whose skeleton has been 

 found almost entire in the now famous Lithographic Stone of 

 Solenhofen in Bavaria. Of this unique type, the Compsogna- 

 thus, the skeleton of which is in many ways so bird-like. Professor 

 Huxley remarks, " It is impossible to look at the conformation 

 of this strange reptile and to doubt that it hopped, or walked, in 



Fig. 1 8. — Skull of Cera/osaurus fiasicornis. (After Marsh.) 



an erect or semi-erect position, after the manner of a bird, to 

 which its long neck, shght head, and small anterior limbs must 

 have given it an extraordinary resemblance." (See Fig. 19.) 



At the head of this chapter are placed the words of Dr. 

 Mantell, " Fossils have been eloquently and appropriately termed 

 Medals of Creation" and the eloquent passage by which those 

 words are followed may be transcribed here. He goes on to 

 say, " For as an accomplished numismatist, even when the 

 inscription of an ancient and unknown coin is illegible, can 

 from the half-obliterated effigy, and from the style of art, 

 determine with precision the people by whom, and the period 



