THE DINOSAURS 91 



term been devised. The first Dinosaur to be 

 formally recognized as representing quite a 

 new order of reptiles was the carnivorous 

 Megalosaur, found near Oxford, England, in 

 1824. 



For a long time our knowledge of Dino- 

 saurs was very imperfect and literally frag- 

 mentary, depending mostly upon scattered 

 teeth, isolated vertebra?, or fragments of bone 

 picked up on the surftice or casually encoun- 

 tered in some mine or quarry. Now, however, 

 thanks mainly to the labors of American pa- 

 laeontologists, thanks also to the rich deposits 

 of fossils in our Western States, we have an 

 extensive knowledge of the Dinosaurs, of their 

 size, structure, habits, and general appearance. 



There are to-day no animals living that are 

 closely related to them ; none have lived for a 

 long period of time, for the Dinosaurs came to 

 an end in the Cretaceous, and it can only be 

 said that the crocodiles, on the one hand, and 

 the ostriches, on the other, are the nearest ex- 

 isting relatives of these great reptiles. 



For, though so different in outward appear^ 

 ance, birds and reptiles are structurally quite 



