xi. RHAMPHORHYNCHUS BUCKLANDI. 227 



Finally, we have one phalangal bone represented (fig-. 3) below 

 the tibia ; but whether it belongs to the leg, or a small finger of 

 the wing, is not easy to determine ; at present I refer it to the leg. 



We have no vertebrae of the tail. 



Such are the elements to be employed for reconstructing, at least 

 in imagination, a creature which, more than realizing the harpy 

 of fable, was once a member of a not inconsiderable race of pre- 

 daceous tyrants of the air while as yet ordinary birds were of rare 

 occurrence. The whole group appears to be mesozoic ; contem- 

 poraries of the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and pleiosaurus, and 

 standing in much the same relation to them as the gulls and terns 

 and pelecanidse of to-day to our living dolphins and other more 

 bulky carnivorous cetacea. Gifted with ample means of flight, 

 able at least to perch on rocks and scuffle along the shore, perhaps 

 competent to dive, though not so well as a palmiped bird, many 

 fishes must have yielded to the cruel beak and sharp teeth of the 

 rhamphorhynchus k . 



If we ask to which of the many families of birds the analogy 

 of structure and probable way of life would lead us to assimilate 

 rhamphorhynchus, the answer must point to the swimming races 

 with long wings, clawed feet, hooked beak, and habits of violence 

 and voracity ; and for preference, the shortness of the legs, and 

 other circumstances, may be held to claim for the Stonesfield fossil 

 a more than fanciful similitude to the groups of the cormorants 

 and other marine divers, which constitute an effective part of the 

 picturesque army of robbers of the sea. 



Marked, then, by several important characters which conduct 

 away from ordinary reptiles, why are not the pterodactylian crea- 

 tures ranked with birds toward which they seem to stretch their 

 wings ? If we strive to insulate the modern beautiful tenants of the 

 air from the strangely-shaped beings which preceded most of them 

 in the order of time, and say birds are essentially and even ex- 

 ceptionally warm-blooded, how are we to be assured that the 

 interior temperature of rhamphorhynchus was simply regulated by 

 that of the atmosphere ? A particular double and complete blood 

 circulation goes with high temperature, and a special system of 



k ' Tristius haud illis monstruin, nee saevior ulla 

 Pestis et ira Defkn Stygiis sese extulit undis.' 



^ENriii. 214, 15. 



Q 2 



