FLYING DRAGONS 
201 
and probably crawl on all fours with wings folded. It may be 
well at once to point out that the Pterodactyl had no true wings 
like those of a bird, but a thin membrane similar to that of a bat, 
only differently supported; so it must be understood that, when 
we use the word wing,” it is not in the scientific sense that we 
are using it, but in the popular sense, just as we might speak of 
the wing of a bat, although the bat has no true wing. Figs. 72, 
73, 74, 75, and 77 will give the reader some idea of the various 
forms presented by the skeletons of Pterodactyls, or, as some 
authorities call them, Pterosaurians (winged lizards). Great 
differences of opinion have existed among palaeontologists as to 
whether they are more reptilian than bird-like, or even mammalian. 
More than a hundred years ago, in 1784, Collini, who was 
Director of the Elector- Palatine Museum at Mannheim, described 
a skeleton which he regarded as that of an unknown marine 
animal. It was a long-billed Pterodactyl from the famous litho- 
graphic stone of Solenhofen in Bavaria. The specimen was figured 
in the Memoirs of the Palatine Aeademy. Collini was able from 
this specimen to make out the head, neck, small tail, left leg, and 
two arms ; but beyond that, he was at a loss. His conclusion 
was that the skeleton belonged neither to a bat nor to a bird, and 
. he inquired whether it might not be an amphibian. 
In 1809 this specimen came into Cuvier’s hands, who at once 
perceived that it belonged to a reptile that could fly, and it was 
he who proposed the name Pterodactyl. Until the oracle at Paris 
was consulted, the greatest uncertainty prevailed, one naturalist 
regarding it as a bird, another as a bat. Cuvier, with his pene- 
trating eye and patient investigation, combated these theories, 
supported though they were by weighty authorities. The 
principal key by means of which he solved the problem, and 
detected the saurian relationship of the Pterodactyl, seems to 
