FLYING DRAGONS. 129 
this elegant little creature was covered up by the fine soft mud 
. that now forms the lithographic stone, its wings were partly 
folded, so that the membranes were more or less contracted into 
folds, like an umbrella only partly open. ‘These appear to have 
been attached all along the arm and to the end of the long 
finger. They then made a graceful curve backward to the hind 
foot, and probably were continued beyond the latter so as to 
join the tail. With its graceful pointed wings and long tail, this 
little flying saurian must have been a beautiful object, as it 
slowly mounted upwards from some cliff overlooking the Jurassic 
seast (See Plate:X IL) 
Like those already described, it was provided with four short- 
clawed fingers, as well as the one which mainly supported its 
wing. Some of the Continental museums contain good collec- 
tions of fossil Pterodactyls; but the largest collection in the 
world is that of Yale College, where Professor Marsh declares 
there are the remains of six hundred individuals from the 
American Cretaceous rocks alone ! 
Some of the fragmentary remains from our Cambridge Green- 
sand formation indicate Pterodactyls of enormous size. ‘Thus 
Fic. 36.—Skuil of Preranodon. 1. Sideview. 2. Top view. (After Marsh.) 
the neck-vertebree of one species measure two inches in length, 
while portions of arm-bones are three inches broad. It is 
probable that the creatures to which these bones once belonged 
measured eighteen or twenty feet from tip to tip of the wings. 
Other also fragmentary remains from the chalk of Kent testify to 
K 
