vi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
lacertilian or salamander-like reptiles, with elongated bodies and 
moderately long tails; that the Iguanodon did not usually stand 
upon “ all-fours,” hut more frequently sat up like some huge 
kangaroo with short fore limbs ; that the horn on its snout was 
really on its wrist ; that the Megalosaurus, with a more slender 
form of skeleton, had a somewhat similar erect attitude, and the 
habit, perhaps, of springing upon its prey, holding it with its 
powerful clawed hands, and tearing it with its formidable car- 
nivorous teeth. 
Although the Bernissart Iguanodon has been to us a complete 
revelation of what a Dinosaur really looked like, it is to America, 
and chiefly to the discoveries of Marsh, that we owe the knowledge 
of a whole series of new reptiles and mammals, many of which will 
be found illustrated within these pages. 
Of long and short-tailed Pterodactyles we now know 
almost complete skeletons and details of their patagia or flying 
membranes. The discovery of the long-tailed feathered bird 
with teeth — the Archaeopteryx, from the Oolite of Solenhofen, is 
another marvellous addition to our knowledge ; whilst Marsh’s 
great Hesperornis, a wingless diving bird with teeth, and his 
flying toothed bird, the Ichthyornis dispar, are to us equally 
surprising. 
Certainly, both in singular forms of fossil reptilia and in early 
mammals, North America carries off the palm. 
Of these the most remarkable are Marsh’s Stegosaurus, a huge 
torpid reptile, with very small head and teeth, about twenty 
feet in length, and having a series of flattened dorsal spines, 
nearly a yard in height, fixed upon the median line of its back ; 
and his Triceratops, another reptile bigger than Stegosaurus, 
having a huge neck-shield joined to its skull, and horns on 
its head and snout. Nor do the Eocene Mammals fall short 
