PINE-LIZARD AND ITS ALLIES: REPTILIA 361 



Fossil remains of the latter part of the Carboniferous Age 

 link the reptiles with the amphibians, so that it is likely that 

 the former are descended from a labyrinthodont ancestry. 

 Some of the reptiles possessed certain skeletal characteristics 



FIG. 186. Photograph of Model of Triceratops 

 (American Museum of Natural History) 



of the fur-bearing animals, arid they are called theromorphs 

 (beast-formed) on that account. 



On land many species of dinosaurs (terrible lizard) were 

 found; some of them were the largest animals ever devel- 

 oped on the earth, reaching, in one case, the possible length 

 of sixty or seventy feet and the height of nearly twenty 

 feet. This animal was so great in bulk that it is consid- 

 ered hardly possible for it to have supported such a vast 

 amount of flesh on land, and it is therefore thought that it 

 was aquatic or semiaquatic in its habits. Some of the dino- 

 saurs, as Ceratosau'rus (Fig. 185), were particularly fitted to 

 walk on their hind legs, using the tail as a support. Mem- 

 bers of this genus grew to be seventeen feet in height. 

 Hundreds of the footprints of dinosaurs have been found in 

 the sandstone of the Connecticut valley. Fig. 186 shows a 

 well-known dinosaur, Tricer 1 'atops, with formidable armature. 



