THE REIGN OF REPTILES. 173 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE KEIGN OF KEPTILES. 



WE now enter upon a new Age in the history of the 

 world. The reptilian army has arrived and taken 

 absolute possession of the land and the sea. The highest 

 of these monarch reptiles, in respect to organization, are 

 some lizard-like creatures as much at home in the sea as 

 upon the land. But especially does the great deep swarm 

 with huge beings having the body of a lizard, the immense 

 jaws and sharp, conical teeth of a crocodile, the bi-concave 

 vertebrae of a fish, and the short, flat paddles of a whale. 

 What a synthesis of characters is here ! The type of the 

 age is expressed in the lacertiform trunk and tail. Croco 

 diles had not yet existed ; but the jaws of these monsters 

 seem like an experiment preparatory to the supply of quan 

 tities of those savage brutes. Mammals were yet in the 

 distant future ; but here, in the paddles of these Enaliosaurs 

 is a prophecy of coming cetacea the form which the mam 

 malian type- assumes at the point where it comes in contact 

 with the type of fishes. The reign of fishes is past ; but 

 here, in the bi-concave vertebra of these sea-monsters is 

 preserved a reminiscence of the last sovereigns. 



This, the Triassic Age, was peculiarly the reign of Laby- 

 rinthodont saurians. Thirty-five years ago the tracks of 

 these anomalous creatures were first noticed upon some red 

 sandstone in Saxony, and they have since been discovered 

 in other parts of the world. The peculiarity of these foot 

 prints consists in their hand-like*form, and in the occur 

 rence of a series of larger and smaller in connection with 



