EARTH DRAGONS. 181 



bipedal types when at rest supported the body 

 on the downwardly directed branches of the 

 hip-girdle, known as the pules, and it is probable 

 that the skin immediately covering these deve- 

 loped a thick callous pad like that on the breast 

 of the Ostrich, which serves a similar purpose. 



One of the earliest known of these carnivorous 

 forms was a beast named Anchisaurus colurus. 

 Measured by the standards of to-day, he would 

 have been called large, standing about four feet 

 high. But he was a veritable pygmy compared 

 with some of the forms which arose during the 

 later Jurassic era. By way of illustration, we 

 will select the species known as Ceratosaurus 

 nasicornis, since this lived in what is now North 

 America, its remains having been found in the 

 Upper Jurassic of Colorado. Standing, when 

 erect, some twelve feet high, this monster was pro- 

 bably capable of considerable activity, since its 

 bones were hollow. With an enormous head, 

 armed with powerful and pointed teeth, and a 

 formidable horn on its snout resembling that of 

 a Rhinoceros, it preyed, in all probability, upon 

 equally huge herbivorous species of its own kind. 

 But earlier than this, there lived 'in our own 

 islands similar bipedal carnivorous types, quite 

 as huge as the Ceratosaurus. The remains of one 

 such, known as Megalosaurus bucklandi, having 

 been found in the Great Oolite of Stonesfield, 

 near Oxford. The teeth of this animal were more 

 than three inches long, and had finely serrated 

 edges, therein differing in this respect from the 

 teeth of Ceratosaurus. 



The development of the herbivorous types, to 



