General Characters.- 



-REPTILES. General Chakactek^. 



nature passed from forms peculiar to creatures of the 

 waters, to those which characterize the vertcbrated 

 animals of the land." In the account of the creation, 

 in the first chapter of Genesis, we appear to have rep- 

 tiles mentioned twice. At the commencement of the 

 fifth day, or epoch, after the waters had been gathered 

 together, and dry land had made its appearance, lighted 

 up and warmed by the rays of the sun, " God said. Let 

 the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature 



that hath life." While the land was still in a soft, 

 miry state, these huge aquatic reptiles of an amphibious 

 nature, the remains of which are now found in the 

 deposits of the fifth period, made their appearance, 

 mixed with " great whales," and other moving animals 

 " which the waters brought forth abundantly." Then 

 were formed those immense creatures of most fantastic 

 forms, the massiveness of whose bodies reqiured deep 

 ponds in which they could disport themselves, and in 



KiK- 1- 



Plesiosaurua H: 

 the thick mud at the bottom of which their impress has 

 remained. They perished, no doubt, in proportion as 

 moisture failed them on a soil in process of evaporation ; 

 and by the time the crust of the earth had become firm 

 and hard, the immense Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, 

 animals with the body of lizards, the fins or padiiles of 

 the turtle, and the neck of the serpent, had disappeared 

 as living beings. At this period it was, or on the sixth 

 day, that terrestrial reptiles were formed, when " God 

 said, Let the earth bring forth the li\ang creature after 

 his kind, cattle and creeping thing." By the time the 

 chef-d'cetwre of creation, Man, made his appearance, 

 many species of reptiles had not only lived upon the 

 globe, but had disappeared from its surface, llixed up 

 with the traditions of almost all nations, and veiled in 

 the haze and obscurity of antiquity, there have been 

 handed down also to us accounts of curious monsters, 

 dragons, &c., which have been generally looked upon 

 as fabulous and treated \vHh derision. Along with the 

 Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri mentioned above, which 

 lived exclusively during the fifth period of creation, in 

 the muddy waters on t!ie surface of the earth, theie 

 existed extraordinary creatures, which were provided 

 with wings after the manner of the bats of the present 

 day, by means of which they were able to raise tliem- 

 selves in the air. These animals are known by the 



awkinsii. — Owen. 



name of Pterodactyles, and their form and proportions 

 are such as might realize those of these mythological 

 dragons mentioned above. Bory St. Vincent does not 

 hesitate, alluding to this subject, to say, " that it would 

 not be rash to conjectui-c, that in the sixth age (anterior 

 to that which sanctifies the repose of the sabbath) some 

 of those monstrous reptiles which might have joined to 

 the characters of Plesiosauri the wings of Pterodactyles, 

 infested the flat shores where the people that lived upon 

 fish had begun to establish themselves." " We do not 

 find their skeletons," he adds, " any more than we do 

 those of man ; but the remembrance of their existence 

 is preser\'ed by tradition, in the dragons of China, of 

 Japan, Siam, and Greece, as well as in the Hydra and 

 Lerna" of the latter country. Be this as it maj', the 

 belief in the existence of wonderful and monstrous forms 

 of reptiles has not yet disappeared, as even hi the nuie- 

 teenth century, the semi-fabulous monster, the Sea 

 Serpent, " though repudiated by all sufficiently learned 

 to be sceptical," stOl forms part of the creed of honest 

 Jack-tars and otlier dwellers on the mighty deep, and 

 which is reported still to pay an aiuiual visit to the 

 Scandinavian fishermen on tlie shores of Norway ! 



In Great Britain, the nvimber of species of existing 

 reptiles is very limited, and the numerical proportion 

 of inchviduals likewise is very small compared with hot 



