138 THE MIDDLE PAST. 



browsed in the virgin forest ; lizards (lacerta and macellodus} 

 basked on the sunny cliffs ; and bird-like genera (pterodady- 



Eestored forms of Megalosaurus and Hylaeosaurus HA.WKINS. 



lus) winged the upper firmament. Every adaptation of form 

 and function finds its exemplar in these ancient saurians, 

 and the part now played by birds and mammals was then 

 in a great measure discharged by reptiles. They were the 

 representatives in time of the higher orders of vitality 

 occupying every habitat, aquatic, terrestrial, and aerial, and 

 fulfilling every function, herbivorous, carnivorous, and om- 

 nivorous. Everywhere they are the dominant forms, and 

 though birds and mammals are coming more clearly on the 

 stage, the great vital phase of creation was, for the time 

 being, unmistakably reptilian. 



This "Reign of Reptiles," as it is sometimes termed, 

 has suggested to minds, more imaginative than logical, the 

 idea of an epoch of incessant warfare and murder; and 

 nothing is more common than pictorial delineations and 

 high-wrought descriptions of reptilian carnage and cruelty. 



