vi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



lacertilian or salamander-like reptiles, with elongated bodies and 

 moderately long tails; that the Iguanodon did not usually stand 

 upon " all-fours," but more frequently sat up like some huge 

 kangaroo with short fore limbs ; that the horn on its snout was 

 really on its wrist ; that the Megalosaurus, with a more slender 

 form of skeleton, had a somewhat similar erect attitude, and the 

 habit, perhaps, of springing upon its prey, holding it with its 

 powerful clawed hands, and tearing it with its formidable car- 

 nivorous teeth. 



Although the Bernissart Iguanodon has been to us a complete 

 revelation of what a Dinosaur really looked like, it is to America, 

 and chiefly to the discoveries of Marsh, that we owe the knowledge 

 of a whole series of new reptiles and mammals, many of which will 

 be found illustrated within these pages. 



Of long and short-tailed Pterodactyles we now know 

 almost complete skeletons and details of their patagia or flying 

 membranes. The discovery of the long-tailed feathered bird 

 with teeth the Archaeopteryx, from the Oolite of Solenhofen, is 

 another marvellous addition to our knowledge; whilst Marsh's 

 great Hesperornis, a wingless diving bird with teeth, and his 

 flying toothed bird, the Ichthyornis dispar, are to us equally 

 surprising. 



Certainly, both in singular forms of fossil reptilia and in early 

 mammals, North America carries off the palm. 



Of these the most remarkable are Marsh's Stegosaurus, a huge 

 torpid reptile, with very small head and teeth, about twenty 

 feet in length, and having a series of flattened dorsal spines, 

 nearly a yard in height, fixed upon the median line of its back ; 

 and his Triceratops, another reptile bigger than Stegosaurus, 

 having a huge neck-shield joined to its skull, and horns on 

 its head and snout. Nor do the Eocene Mammals fall short 



