FLYING DRAGONS. 



129 



this elegant little creature was covered up by the fine soft mud 

 that now forms the lithographic stone, its wings were partly 

 folded, so that the membranes were more or less contracted into 

 folds, like an umbrella only partly open. These appear to have 

 been attached all along the arm and to the end of the long 

 ringer. They then made a graceful curve backward to the hind 

 foot, and probably were continued beyond the latter so as to 

 join the tail. With its graceful pointed wings and long tail, this 

 little flying saurian must have been a beautiful object, as it 

 slowly mounted upwards from some cliff overlooking the Jurassic 

 seas. (See Plate XII.) 



Like those already described, it was provided with four short- 

 clawed fingers, as well as the one which mainly supported its 

 wing. Some of the Continental museums contain good collec- 

 tions of fossil Pterodactyls; but the largest collection in the 

 world is that of Yale College, where Professor Marsh declares 

 there are the remains of six hundred individuals from the 

 American Cretaceous rocks alone ! 



Some of the fragmentary remains from our Cambridge Green- 

 sand formation indicate Pterodactyls of enormous size. Thus 



FIG. 36. Skull of Pteranoion. i. Side view. 2. Top view. (After Marsh.) 

 the neck-vertebrae of one species measure two inches in length, 

 while portions of arm-bones are three inches broad. It is 

 probable that the creatures to which these bones once belonged 

 measured eighteen or twenty feet from tip to tip of the wings. 

 Other also fragmentary remains from the chalk of Kent testify to 



K 



