OF A FORMER WORLD. 



33 



tiles have enabled the palaeontologist to reconstruct, and 

 place before us in their natural forms and appearance. 

 With a head and length of neck resembling those of a bird, 

 the wings of a vampire or bat, and the body and tail of an 

 ordinary mammalian, these creatures present an anomaly of 

 structure as unlike their fossil contemporaries, as is the duck- 

 billed Platypus, or Ornithorhynchus, of Australia, the ex- 

 isting animals. The skull is small, with very long beaks, 

 which extend like those of the crocodile, and are furnished 

 with upward of sixty sharp, pointed teeth ; the eyes were 

 enormous, enabling the creature to fly by night. The fore- 

 finger is immensely elongated, for the support of a membra- 

 nous expansion, as in the bat : the impression of the wing- 

 membrane is preserved on the stone in some examples ; and 

 the fingers terminated, as in that animal, in long curved 

 claws. The size and form of the foot, leg, and thigh, show 

 that the Pterodactyles were capable of perching on trees, 

 and of standing firmly on the ground, when, with its wings 

 Fig. 5. 



Restorations of Saurians and other animals of the Liaa. 



