THE AGE OF REPTILES 



body and to the hind limbs. Their heads were bird-like, 

 and their jaws at first were set with teeth. They had 

 true powers of flight, as is shown by the discovery of their 

 remains in places where they must have been far out at 

 sea when they sank and were buried. Later Pterodactyls 

 had no teeth, and were, perhaps, milder in habits. 



It seems natural to pass from the fossil reptiles to the 

 birds. But as a matter of fact the birds are not very 

 closely related to the Pterodactyls, and seem to have 

 been descended from some other very special form of 

 reptiles, so peculiar as to be considered a distinct class. 

 It may actually have been descended from those reptiles 

 among the Dinosaurs which walked on their hind 

 legs and had only three toes to the foot. The first bird 

 found belongs to Jurassic times ; and its skeleton, found in 

 some slate remains at Solenhofen in Bavaria, is now to be 

 seen in the Natural History Museum. There is another 

 one in Berlin. This bird, called the Archaeopteryx, was 

 of the size of a large pigeon, had a short head apparently 

 without a beak, and its jaws were armed with teeth. 

 Whereas living birds have the fingers of their " hands " tied 

 together in their wings, this bird has three distinct 

 fingers at the corner of its wings, each armed with a claw. 

 Its legs were like those of living birds, and it had four 

 toes. Its tail was unlike that of any living bird, and like 

 that of a lizard. Whereas the bony part of the tail of 

 living birds is very short and bears the tail feathers set 

 across it fan wise, the Archceopteryx had a long bony 

 tail made up of many bones, and the feathers were set in 

 a series one behind the other till the tail looked like the 



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