i 62 
EXTINCT MONSTERS 
teeth belonged. Being hampered by arduous professional duties 
in a provincial town, remote from museums and libraries, Dr. 
Mantell transmitted to the Royal Society figures and drawings of 
the specimens, and, at the suggestion of the Rev. W. D. Cony- 
beare, adopted the name Iguanodon (Iguana-tooth) for the extinct 
reptile, a name which pointed to the resemblance of its teeth to 
those of the modern iguana, a land-lizard some three to five feet 
long, inhabiting many parts of America and the West Indies, 
and rarely met with north or south of the tropics. 
In all living reptiles the insects or vegetables on which they 
feed are seized by the tongue or teeth, and swallowed whole, so ; 
that a movable covering to the jaws, similar to the lips and cheeks j 
of the mammalia, is not necessary, either for seizing and retain- I 
ing food or for subjecting it by muscular movements to the action | 
of the teeth. It is the power of perfect mastication possessed by | 
the Iguanodon that is so strange, for it implies a most remarkable I: 
approach in extinct reptiles to characters possessed now only by | 
herbivorous mammalia, such as horses, cows, deer, etc. From | 
this and other strange characters seen in the Dinosaurs, we learn | 
that they in their day played the part of our modern mammals, | 
whether carnivorous or herbivorous, and showed remarkable S! 
1,1 
approach to the mammalian type, which of course is a much | 
if 
higher one. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that Dr. f 
Mantell’s contemporaries, with the exception of Cuvier, found in | , 
I 
these teeth an awkward puzzle and refused to believe that they I 
. . ^ 
belonged to a reptile. Such a notion was at variance with all j 
previous experience ; and we naturally form our conclusions |j 
largely by experience. The importance of discovering, if possible, | 
t 
a portion of the jaw of an Iguanodon was fully recognised by | 
Dr. Mantell, and, urged by the encouragement he had received | 
from the illustrious Cuvier, he eagerly sought for the required I 
