206 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



joints in that which corresponds to the little finger 

 is increased to five, and each joint is enormously 

 lengthened. To the whole of the little finger, thus 

 produced till it has become longer than the body and 

 neck together, a membranous wing was attached, 

 which was also fastened to the rest of the arm, to 

 the body, and to a portion of the hinder extremity. 

 When, therefore, the arm was extended, the wing 

 was not necessarily expanded, and only became so 

 on the little finger being also stretched out so as to 

 be at right angles to the arm ; and the membrane was 

 then nearly surrounded on four sides by bone. By 

 this contrivance the necessity of employing the whole 

 arm in the mechanism of flying as in the bird, or 

 the whole hand as in the bat, was done away with, 

 and the flying apparatus being confined to one finger, 

 the arms and hands could be readily and conve- 

 niently made use of like the corresponding extremi- 

 ties of other animals. 



The great peculiarity, then, in the Pterodactyl, 

 with regard to the organs of locomotion, is the free- 

 dom with which the arms and legs could act when 

 the wings were not in use and this extends even to 

 the structure of the toes, which in the bat form only 

 a single hook, but in the Pterodactyl were free, and 

 would allow the animal to stand firmly on the ground, 

 to walk about like a bird, to perch on a tree, to 

 climb rocks and cliffs, and possibly also to swim in 

 the ocean. 



We have, therefore, in this singular genus an ani- 

 mal which, in all points of bony structure, from the 

 teeth to the extremity of the nails, presents the cha- 

 racteristics of a reptile, being even perhaps covered 



