THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME— DINOSAURS. 63 
would be very easy to construct no small variety of dragons ; and 
so vve may believe this is what the ancients did. 
Having said so much of dragons in general, let us proceed to 
consider those both possible and real monsters revealed of late 
years by the researches of geologists. For this purpose we shall 
devote the present and two following chapters to the consideration 
of a great and wonderful group of fossil reptiles known as 
Dinosaurs. The strange fish-lizards and sea-lizards previously 
described were the geological contemporaries of a host of 
reptiles, now mostly extinct, which inhabited both the lands and 
waters of those periods known as the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cre- 
taceous, which taken together represent the great Mesozoic, 
formerly called the Secondary, era. 
The announcement by Baron Cuvier — the illustrious founder 
of Palaeontology — that there was a period when our planet was 
inhabited by reptiles of appalling magnitude, with many of the 
features of modern quadrupeds, was of so novel and startling a 
character as to require the prestige of even his name to obtain 
for it any degree of credence. But subsequent discoveries have 
1 fully confirmed the truth of his belief, and the “ age of reptiles ” 
|| is no longer considered fabulous. This expression was first 
|i used by Dr. Mantell as the title of a paper published in the 
j Edmbu?'gh Philosophical Journal in 1831, and serves to remind 
jj us that reptilian forms of life were once the ruling class among 
animals. 
The Dinosaurs are an extinct order comprising the largest 
j terrestrial and semi-aquatic reptiles that ever lived ; and while 
some of them in a general way resembled crocodiles, others show 
in the bony structures they have left behind a very remarkable 
and interesting resemblance to birds of the ostrich tribe. This 
resemblance shows itself in the pelvis, or bony arch with which 
the hind limbs are connected in vertebrate or back-boned animals, 
and in the limbs themselves. This curious fact, first brought 
into notice by Professor Huxley, has been variously interpreted 
