INTRODUCTION. 
0 
EXTINCT ANIMALS. 
structure to tlie body and tail of the mammalia. The skull, also, is small, the head being furnished 
with a beak which has not less than sixty pointed teeth. These singular characteristics, so puz- 
zling to investigators, it was reserved for the genius of Cuvier to reconcile. He ranks the ptero- 
dactyles among the most extraordinary of all extinct animals ; and if we could see them restored 
to life, they would strike us as being singularly unlike any thing that exists in the present world. 
Many species have been discovered, varying from the size of a snipe to that of a cormorant. In 
external form, these creatures bore a resemblance to the bat or vampire. The snout was elongated 
like that of the crocodile, and armed with conical teeth. The eye, as appears from the orbit, must 
have been of enormous size, thus fitting them, like the bat, to fly by niglit. They resembled the 
bat also in having fingers, terminating with long hooks, which projected from their wings. They 
were thus famished with a powerful paw, which enabled them to creep, or climb, or hang from the 
trees. It is thought, also, that the pterodaotyle, like some existing species of bats in the East, pos- 
sessed the power of swimming. 
As this creature had wings, it was natural to look for the structure of the bird or bat in the 
bones. The beak, however, had teeth, and the form of a single bone enabled Cuvier to decide 
that the animal belonged to the lizard tribe, so that it was a kind of flying reptile. The vertebrae 
of the neck, also, are to those of birds only as six or seven to from nine to twenty-three, while 
those of the back are in the reverse proportion ; the ribs, too, like those of the lizard, are thin and 
thread-shaped, and thus diff'er from those of birds, as do the bones of the feet and toes. They are 
supposed to have fed on insects, and the presence of large fossil dragon-flies and other insects in the 
same quarries where the pterodactyles are found proves that they existed at the same period, and 
probably formed a portion of their tbod. They may also have fed upon fish, and some of the 
small marsupial animals, or those of the opossum kind, which then existed on the earth. The 
creature was evidently capable of perching on trees, or standing firmly on the ground, and, by 
folding its wings, could hop or walk like a bird. 
Dr. Buckland, alluding to the peculiarities of the pterodactyle, and the age in which it lived, 
says : " Thus, like Milton's fiend, quahfied for all services 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. 
Vol. I.— 2 
