342 THE PTERODACTYL. 



mnst have been extensive ; and it resembled the vegeta- 

 tion which exists at present in Tropical regions. 



We pass now to a new epoch, which is well distin- 

 guished by its animals from all that had preceded 

 it. Races of reptiles still have place upon the earth, 

 and we have now the megalosanrian remains; these 

 animals possessing a strength and rapacity which would 

 render them objects of terror as well as astonishment, 

 conld they be restored to the world which they once 

 ravaged. An enormous bat-like creature also existed 

 at this time the pterodactyl which, in the language 

 of Cuvier, was, " undoubtedly, the most extraordinary 

 of all the beings of whose former existence a knowledge 

 is granted to us, and that which, if seen alive, would 

 appear most unlike anything that exists in the present 

 world." " You see before you," says the same writer, 

 " an animal which, in all points of bony structure, from 

 the teeth to the extremities of the nails, presents the 

 well-known saurian characteristics, and of which no one 

 can doubt that its integuments and soft parts, its scaly 

 armour and its organs of circulation and reproduction, 

 are likewise analogous. But it was, at the same time, 

 an animal provided with the means of flying ; and, when 

 stationary, its wings were probably folded back like 

 those of a bird, although, perhaps, by the claws attached 

 to its fingers, it might suspend itself from the branches 

 of trees."* 



From the disintegration of the older rocks have no 

 doubt arisen those formations which are known as the 

 oolitic series. In these strata are preserved the remains 

 of plants and animals more resembling those which now 

 exist upon the earth ; and, for the first time, unless 

 the evidence of the footsteps of birds on the new red 



* See Owen, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, No. ft, 

 p. 90. Dr. Bucklancl, Geological Transactions, vol. iii. p. 220 

 The Wonders of Geology : by Dr. Mantell, vol. ii. p. 493. 



