FLYING DRAGONS 201 



and probably crawl on all fours with wings folded. It may be 

 well at once to point out that the Pterodactyl had no true wings 

 like those of a bird, but a thin membrane similar to that of a bat, 

 only differently supported ; so it must be understood that, when 

 we use the word " wing," it is not in the scientific sense that we 

 are using it, but in the popular sense, just as we might speak of 

 the wing of a bat, although the bat has no true wing. Figs. 72, 

 73, 74, 75, and 77 will give the reader some idea of the various 

 forms presented by the skeletons of Pterodactyls, or, as some 

 authorities call them, Pterosaurians (winged lizards). Great 

 differences of opinion have existed among palaeontologists as to 

 whether they are more reptilian than bird-like, or even mammalian. 

 More than a hundred years ago, in 1784, Collini, who was 

 Director of the Elector- Palatine Museum at Mannheim, described 

 a skeleton which he regarded as that of an unknown marine 

 animal. It was a long-billed Pterodactyl from the famous litho- 

 graphic stone of Solenhofen in Bavaria. The specimen was figured 

 in the Memoirs of the Palatine Academy. Collini was able from 

 this specimen to make out the head, neck, small tail, left leg, and 

 two arms; but beyond that, he was at a loss. His conclusion 

 was that the skeleton belonged neither to a bat nor to a bird, and 

 he inquired whether it might not be an amphibian. 



In 1809 this specimen came into Cuvier's hands, who at once 

 perceived that it belonged to a reptile that could fly, and it was 

 he who proposed the name Pterodactyl. Until the oracle at Paris 

 was consulted, the greatest uncertainty prevailed, one naturalist 

 regarding it as a bird, another as a bat. Cuvier, with his pene- 

 trating eye and patient investigation, combated these theories, 

 supported though they were by weighty authorities. The 

 principal key by means of which he solved the problem, and 

 detected the saurian relationship of the Pterodactyl, seems to 



