788 



HISTORICAL GEOLOGY. 



Pterosaurs. — The Pterosaurs, or flying Lizards, have hollow bones like 

 Birds. The genera Dimorphodon, characterized by a long tail, and Ptero- 

 dactylus, hj a very short one (Fig. 1321), occur in the Lias, and ' Bhavi- 

 phorhynchus (Figs. 1323-1325) in the Stonesfield slate and at Solenhofen. 



Fig. 1321 represents the skeleton (i- natural size) of Pterodactylus crassi- 

 rostris; it was a foot long, and the spread of the Avings about three feet. 

 Fig. 1323 is the Rhamphorynchus phyllurus of Marsh, from Solenhofen, Eich- 



1326. 



stadt, Bavaria, and lo-'o 



o,o; 



a 



restoration ; its long slen- 

 der tail ends in a broad 

 oar (Fig. 1324). The fine 

 specimen in the Yale Mu- 

 seum, New Haven, Conn., 

 has an impression of the 

 wing membrane, showing it 

 to be without feathers. 



3. Birds. — Specimens 

 of birds have been found in 

 the lithographic limestone 

 of Solenhofen, with nearly 

 complete impressions of the 

 feathers and also well-pre- 

 served bones of the limbs, 

 heads, and most other parts 

 of the skeleton. They per- 

 tain to a single species, — 

 the ArclicBopteryx macrura 

 of Owen. A single feather 

 was first found in 1860. 

 This was followed, two 

 years later, by the dis- 

 covery of a nearly entire 

 skeleton, but wanting the 

 head; it was described by 

 Owen. The specimen is 

 now in the British Museum. 

 Later, a third and still more 

 complete skeleton was ob- 

 tained, and this is in the 

 Museum at Berlin. It has 

 (1) in the jaws on either 

 side, in sockets, 13 Eeptile-like teeth; (2) a long vertebrated tail, having 

 20 vertebrse, each carrying a pair of long feathers ; (3) wing bones like 

 those of the fore leg of a normal three-toed Reptile, having claws at the 

 extremity; (4) four-toed hind limbs. Bird-like in adaptation to biped loco- 



BiKD. — Archseopteryx macrura (x J). W. Dames. 



