ROOM III. PTERODACTYLES. 187 



PTERODACTTLES. Flying Reptiles, Wall-case A-B. (ante 

 p. 153.) It was not merely in magnitude, observes the 

 illustrious Cuvier, 1 that Reptiles stood pre-eminent in an- 

 cient days, but they were distinguished by forms more 

 varied and extraordinary than any that are now known to 

 exist on the face of the earth. Among these extinct beings 

 of ages incalculably remote, none are more marvellous than 

 those we are about to examine the Pterodactyles (wing- 

 fingered), which had the power of flying, not by means of 

 their ribs, like the Draco volans, nor by a membrane stretched 

 over four elongated fingers, with a rudimentary thumb, as in 

 bats nor by a wing without distinct fingers, as in birds but 

 by a wing sustained principally on a very elongated toe, while 

 the other members preserved their normal shortness, and were 

 armed with claws ; and with this remarkable conformation 

 were associated a long neck, and beaks armed with teeth. 



With the exception of the unique specimen of Ptero- 

 dactyle from Lyme Regis, and a few detached bones from the 

 Wealden (collected by the author), the Museum only contains 

 casts of the remains of this extraordinary tribe of reptiles. 

 The specimens from which these models were taken, were 

 obtained from the lithographic stone of Solenhofen, in which 

 bones of Pterodactyles are associated with fossil dragon-flies 

 and other insects. The following are figured and described 

 by Goldfuss, viz. : Pterodactylus longirostris, P. brevirostris, 

 P. Munsteri? and P. crassirostris. 



The extinct beings referred to this genus, and of which 

 nearly twenty species are now determined, varying in size 

 from that of a snipe to species with wings sixteen feet in 



exposing the skeleton of a FOX, closely related to the common species, 



the private collection 

 of Sir Roderick Murchison ; it is certainly one of the most interesting 

 relics hitherto discovered in the celebrated locality of the Homo dilumi 

 tfstis. I would refer the reader interested in the history of the ancient 

 lake of (Eningen, to Sir Roderick Murchison's Memoir above cited. 

 " Geol. Trans." new series, vol. iii. pp. 277 290. 



1 Cuvier, "Oss. Foss." tome v. p. 358. Art. vi.^ "Ce netoit pas 

 >eulement par la grandeur que la classe des reptiles," &c. 



2 " Reptilien aus dem lithographischen Schiefer," von Dr. Goldfuss. 

 The figures given by Goldfuss, and Count Munster, of these specimens, 

 have been copied into almost every subsequent work on fossil remains. 



