202 



PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



saur unites them with quadrupeds. The animal is 

 called Pterodactyl,* and is a true flying reptile (fig. 

 78). It exhibits, however, in the various parts of its 

 skeleton such strange resemblances to other and very 



PTERODACTYL. 



widely separated groups, that it was successively de- 

 scribed as a bird and a bat, before it was acknow- 

 ledged according to its true analogies ; and this not 

 without some ground, since the mistake arose from 

 the presence of peculiarities of structure considered 

 in each case as characteristic of the two great classes 

 of Vertebrata to which it was referred. It is, perhaps, 

 the most extraordinary of all the beings of whose 

 former existence the study of fossils has made us 

 aware, and is that which if living would appear most 

 unlike anything that exists in the known world. 



In the external form of the body the Pterodactyl 

 probably resembled the bats or vampires ; and some 



* Hrepov (pterori), a wing ; SaicTvXoQ (dactylus\ a finger : from its 

 mode of flight. 



