THE DINOSAURS 91 
term been devised. The first Dinosaur to be 
formally recognized as representing quite a 
new order of reptiles was the carnivorous 
Megalosaur, found near Oxford, England, in 
1824. 
For a-long time our knowledge of Dino- 
saurs was very imperfect and literally frag- 
mentary, depending mostly upon scattered 
teeth, isolated vertebree, or fragments of bone 
picked up on the surface or casually encoun- 
tered in some mine or quarry. Now, however, 
_ thanks mainly to the labors of American pa- 
lzontologists, thanks also to the rich deposits 
of fossils in our Western States, we have an 
extensive knowledge of the Dinosaurs, of their 
size, structure, habits, and general appearance. 
There are to-day no animals living that are 
closely related to them ; none have lived for a 
long period of time, for the Dinosaurs came to 
an end in the Cretaceous, and it can only be 
said that the crocodiles, on the one hand, and 
the ostriches, on the other, are the nearest ex- 
isting relatives of these great reptiles. 
For, though so different in outward appear. 
ance, birds and reptiles are structurally quite 
