I2 4 ANIMAL LIFE PAST AND PRESENT. 



Moreover, one or both of these cutting-edges were 

 jagged like a saw, indicating that these formidable 

 teeth were adapted for tearing and rending flesh. This 

 led Dr. Buckland to conclude that the old Stonesfield 

 reptile, to which these teeth once belonged, was of 

 carnivorous habits ; and since the bones found in the 

 same deposits indicated a creature of comparatively 

 huge dimensions, he proposed that it should be known 

 as the Megalosaur, or Great Reptile. Since, however, the 

 thigh-bone of the Megalosaur does not exceed a yard 

 in length, it is obvious that the creature was vastly in- 

 ferior in point of size to the Hoplosaur and its kindred. 



Similar teeth were subsequently found by Dr. Man- 

 tell in the Wealden beds ; and by discoveries after- 

 wards made both in Europe and the United States, it 

 was eventually found that the Megalosaur was merely 

 one representative of a group of Giant Land Reptiles 

 characterised, among other peculiarities, by the pos- 

 session of teeth of the type described above, and also 

 by having sharply curved claws adapted to aid these 

 teeth in seizing and destroying living prey. While, 

 therefore, the Iguanodons and the Hoplosaurs of the 

 Secondary period may be compared to the herbivorous 

 elephants and hippopotami of the present fauna of the 

 globe, the place of the lions and tigers of to-day was 

 occupied in the same early epoch by the Megalosaurs. 



Although these Megalosaurs walked upright, like 

 the Iguanodons, which they also resembled in having 

 hollow limb-bones, there is a very important difference 

 between these two groups of reptiles in regard to that 



