PTERODACTYLE. 179 



of the whole body, we may infer that the Pterodactyles did 

 not suspend themselves after the manner of the Bats. The 

 size and form of the foot, and also of the leg and thigh, 

 show that they had the power of standing firmly on the 

 ground, where, with their wings folded, they possibly moved 

 after the manner of birds ; they could also perch on tress, 

 and climb on rocks and cliffs, with their hind and fore-feet 

 conjointly like bats and Lizards. 



With regard to their food, it has been conjectured by 

 Cuvier, that they fed on insects, and from the magnitude of 

 their eyes that they may also have been noctivagous. The 

 presence of large fossil Libelluls, or Dragon-flies, and many 

 other insects, in the same lithographic quarries with the 

 Pterodactyles at Solenhofen, and of the wings of coleopte- 

 rous insects, mixed with bones of Pterodactyles, in the oolitic 

 slate of Stonesficid, near Oxford, proves that large insects 

 existed at the same time with them, and may have contri- 

 buted to their supply of food. We know that many of the 

 smaller Lizards of existing species are insectivorous: some 

 are also carnivorous, and others omnivorous, but the head 

 and teeth of two species of Pterodactyle, are so much larger 

 and stronger than is necessary for the capture of insects, 

 that the larger species of them may possibly have fed on 

 fishes, darting upon them from the air after the manner of 

 Sea Swallows and Solan Geese. The enormous size and 

 strength of the head and teeth of the P. Crassirostris, would 

 not only have enabled it to catch fish, but also to kill and de- 

 vour the few small marsupial mammalia which then existed 

 upon the land. 



The entire range of ancient anatomy, affords few more 

 striking examples of the uniformity of the laws, which con- 

 nect the extinct animals of the fossil creation with existing 

 organized beings, than those we have been examining in the 

 case of the Pterodactyle. We find the details of parts 

 which, from their minuteness should seem insignificant, ac- 

 quiring great importance in such an investigation as we 



