FLYING REPTILES 73 



fall in pursuit of insects on which it seems probable 

 that the smaller species fed. 



For reasons unknown they were either sparsely repre- 

 sented in North America during the Jurassic period or 

 their favorite cemetery has not come to light: at any 

 rate scarcely any examples have been found and those 

 in fragmentary condition. 



Later on, in the Cretaceous, Pterodactyls became 

 abundant and in what is now the State of Kansas 

 reached their greatest size in the shape of Pteranodon 

 or Ornithostoma. 



Nature's varied ways of making a wing were con- 

 sidered in the chapter on Birds of Old, and it will 

 be remembered that in Pterodactyls the wing was 

 formed by a membrane stretched between the little 

 finger and the side of the body. In Pteranodon this 

 little finger was nine feet long, the wings having a spread 

 of from fifteen to occasionally twenty feet, the maxi- 

 mum reached by any flying animal. 



The condor and albatross are to-day the largest 

 flying creatures and they have a spread of wing from a 

 little under nine feet to from ten to ten and one-half 

 feet. Albatross are said to exceed this and I have seen 

 some that I should have estimated at twelve feet, but 

 even this is far under the fifteen to twenty feet of 

 Pteranodon. 



Structurally, Pteranodon was a marvel of lightness, the 

 great wing bones being scarcely thicker than a sheet of 

 blotting paper, the body little more than an appendage 

 to the wings. For though having twice the spread of 

 wing of a swan, Pteranodon probably did not weigh 

 more than twenty-five pounds, possibly not even so 

 much as that. 



Professor Langley was much interested in Pteranodon 

 because not only was it the greatest flying creature but 



