248 HISTORICAL PALEONTOLOGY. 



structure and probable way of life would lead us to assimilate 

 Rhamphorhynchus, the answer must point to the swimming 



Fig. 179. Rhamphorhynchns Bitcklandi, restored. Bath Oolite, England. 

 (After the late Professor Phillips.) 



races with long wings, clawed feet, hooked beak, and habits of 

 violence and voracity ; and for preference, the shortness of the 

 legs, and other circumstances, may be held to claim for the 

 Stonesfield fossil a more than fanciful similitude to the groups 

 of Cormorants, and other marine divers, which constitute an 

 effective part of the picturesque army of robbers of the sea." 



Another extraordinary and interesting group of the Mesozoic 

 Reptiles is constituted by the Deinosauria, comprising a series 

 of mostly gigantic forms, which range from the Trias to the 

 Chalk. All the " Deinosaurs " are possessed of the two pairs 

 of limbs proper to Vertebrate animals, and these organs are in 

 the main adapted for walking on the dry land. Thus, whilst 

 the Mesozoic seas swarmed with the huge Ichthyosaurs and 

 Plesiosaurs, and whilst the air was tenanted by the Dragon-like 

 Pterosaurs, the land - surfaces of the Secondary period were 

 peopled by numerous forms of Deinosaurs, some of them of 

 even more gigantic dimensions than their marine brethren. 

 The limbs of the Deinosaurs are, as just said, adapted for pro- 

 gression on the land ; but in some cases, at any rate, the 

 hind-limbs were much longer and stronger than the fore-limbs ; 

 and there seems to be no reason to doubt that many of these 

 forms possessed the power of walking, temporarily or perman- 

 ently, on their hind-legs, thus presenting a singular resemblance 

 to Birds. Some very curious and striking points connected 

 with the structure of the skeleton have also been shown to 

 connect these strange Reptiles with the true Birds ; and such 

 high authorities as Professors Huxley and Cope are of opinion 

 that the Deinosaurs are distinctly related to this class, being in 

 some respects intermediate between the proper Reptiles and 

 the great wingless Birds, like the Ostrich and Cassowary. On 

 the other hand, Professor Owen has shown that the Deinosaurs 



