200 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible 

 monster ? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of 

 them found fossil up and down the world ? People call them 

 Pterodactyls ; but that is only because they are ashamed to call 

 them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons 

 could exist." 



The illustrious Cuvier observes that it was not merely in 

 magnitude that reptiles stood pre-eminent in ancient 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, are the 

 Pterodactyls, 1 or " wing-fingered " creatures, which had the power 

 of flight, not by a membrane stretched over elongated fingers as in 

 bats, nor by a wing without distinct or complete fingers, as in 

 birds, but by a membrane supported chiefly by a greatly extended 

 little finger, the other fingers being short and armed with claws. 



The only reptile now existing which has any power of sustain- 

 ing itself in the air is the little Draco volans, or " flying lizard," 

 so called ; but this can scarcely be regarded as a flying animal. 

 Its ribs, however, are prolonged to such an extent that they 

 support a broad expansion of the skin, so spread out from side 

 to side as to perform the office of a parachute, thus enabling 

 the creature to spring from tree to tree by means of extended 

 leaps ; and this it does with wonderful activity. 



Many forms of Pterodactyl are known. Some were not larger 

 than a sparrow ; others about the size of a woodcock ; yet others 

 much larger, the largest of all having a spread of wing (or rather 

 of the flying membranes) of twenty-five feet ! It has been con- 

 cluded that they could perch on trees, hang against perpendicular 

 surfaces, such as the edge of a cliff, stand firmly on the ground, 

 1 From the Greek pteron, wing, and dactylos, finger. 



