302 PLYING REPTILES, PISHES, AND MOLLUSCS. 



wonderful Flying Lizards, which seem to have been so 

 plentiful in the ancient times, and which we now know 

 by the general term of Pterodactyls. This word sig- 

 nifies wing-fingered, and the name is given to the 

 animals because, like the bats, they were enabled to 

 f y by means of a membrane which was stretched be- 

 tween the elongated joints of the fore limbs. 



It is worthy of notice, by the way, that in these 

 reptiles of an extinct age, the wing seems to have de- 

 pended for its power principally on that joint which in 

 the animals of the present time is the weakest 

 namely, the fifth, or, as we should call it, the " little " 

 toe or finger. In the various Pterodactyls, however, 

 the first four toes are only moderately elongated, 

 whereas the fifth is not only drawn out until it is 

 nearly as long as the head, neck, and body put to- 

 gether, but its two basal joints are as thick as those ot 

 the arm itself, and rather longer. 



Of the habits of these creatures little can be known, 

 but the shape of their teeth shows that they must 

 have been carnivorous, seizing their prey and swallow- 

 ing it without any power of mastication. They varied 

 much in size, some species being about as large as a 

 pigeon, while others measured several feet across the 

 extended wings. How these extraordinary animals 

 looked when in life, the reader may easily see by 

 visiting the Extinct Animals' Department in the 

 grounds of the Crystal Palace, where the art of Mr. 

 Waterhouse Hawkins has reproduced the forms of 

 these and various other animals, which are now known 

 only by their fossil remains, and shows us how strange 

 and almost grotesque were the creatures which in- 



