332 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



these strata were formed, and when crocodiles, monocuh, and 

 so many other beings existed there, which are now found only 

 in the torrid zone, there were two species of saurians which 

 could fly by means of a membrane sustained by a single one 

 of the toes of the anterior extremity — which suspended them- 

 selves, and, perhaps, crept by means of the three other toes 

 of this extremity — which sat upright on their hind-feet only, 

 and whose large head was cleft by an enormous mouth, armed 

 with small pointed teeth, proper for seizing insects, and other 

 small animals. 



Of all the wonderful beings that the researches into fossil 

 osteology has brought to light, these are incontestably the most 

 extraordinary, and the most entirely different from any beheld 

 in existing nature. 



In the same strata some more bones were found, which 

 might have belonged to some large species of this genus. Two 

 of them appeared to be the second and third phalanges of the 

 great toe of the pterodactylus. The second, which had but 

 eighteen lines in length in the preceding species, was more 

 than seven inches long in this. 



Fossil Batracian Reptiles. 



The animals analogous to the frog, the toad, the salamander, — 

 these naked reptiles subject to metamorphoses, which consti- 

 tute a small family so isolated in the Animal Kingdom by 

 its whole organization, did yet exist in those lands destroyed 

 by the revolutions of the globe, and, though differing in species, 

 were subjected to the same laws of co-existence and conforma- 

 tion of organs. They must, however, have been rather few in 

 number, if we may judge by the small quantity of debris which 

 remain of them, and the small number of places in which they 

 have been discovered. Even where they have been found, 

 there is a portion of doubt or obscurity thrown around them. 

 As this is the case, it is not necessary here to follow the 



