174 FLYING SAURIANS. 



is now possessed by the Pteropus Pselaphon, or Vampire 

 Bat of the island of Bonin. (See Zool. Journ. No. 16, p. 

 458.) " Thus, like Milton's fiend, all qualified for all ser- 

 vices and all elements, the creature was a fit companion for 

 the kindred reptiles that swarmed in the seas, or crawled on 

 the shores of a turbulent planet. 



' The Fiend, 

 O'er b'lSl', or steep, through strait, rougli, dense, or rare. 

 With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, 

 And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.' 



Paradise Lost, Book II. line 947. 



With flocks of such like creatures flying in the air, and 

 shoals of no less monstrous Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri 

 swarming in the ocean, and gigantic Crocodiles, and Tor- 

 toises crawling on the shores of the primeval lakes and 

 rivers, air, sea, and land must have been strangely tenanted 

 in these early periods of our infant world."* 



As the most obvious feature of these fossil reptiles is the 

 presence of organs of flight, it is natural to look for the 

 peculiarities of the Bird or Bat, in the structure of their 

 component bones. All attempts, however, to identify them 

 with Birds are stopped at once by the fact of their having 

 teeth in the beak, resembling those of reptiles : the form of 

 a single bone, the os quadratum, enabled Cuvier to pro- 

 nounce at once that the creature was a Lizard : but a 

 Lizard possessing wings exists not in the present creation, 

 and is to be found only among the Dragons of romance 

 and heraldry ;t while a moment's comparison of the head 



» Geol. Trans. Lond. N. S. Vol. III. pnrt. 1. 



t One diminutive living species of Lizard, (the Draco volans, see PI. 

 92, L.) differs from all other Saurians, in having an appearance of im- 

 perfect wings, produced by a membranous expansion of the skin over 

 the false ribs which project almost horizontally from the back; tJie 

 jnembranc expanded by thc>e false ribs, acts like a parachute to support 

 the animal in leaping from tree to tree, but has no power to beat the 



