222 
FLYING SAURIANS. 
those of bats, and the body and tail approximat- 
ing to those of ordinary Mammalia. These 
characters, connected with a small skull, as is 
usual among reptiles, and a beak furnished with 
not less than sixty pointed teeth, presented a 
combination of apparent anomalies which it was 
reserved for the genius of Cuvier to reconcile. 
In his hands, this apparently monstrous produc- 
tion of the ancient world, has been converted into 
one of the most beautiful examples yet aftbrded 
by comparative anatomy, of the harmony that 
pervades all nature, in the adaptation of the 
same parts of the animal frame, to infinitely 
varied conditions of existence. 
In the case of the Pterodactyle we have an 
extinct genus of the Order Saurians, in the class 
of Reptiles, (a class that now moves only on 
land or in the water), adapted by a peculiarity 
of structure to fly in the air. It will be interest- 
ing to see how the anterior extremity, which in 
the fore leg of the modern Lizard and Crocodiles 
is an organ of locomotion on land, became con- 
verted into a membraniferous wing; and how 
far the other parts of the body are modified so as 
to fit the entire animal machine for the func- 
tions of flight. The details of this enquiry will 
afford such striking examples of numerical agree- 
ment in the component bones of every limb, witJi 
those in the cori’esponding limbs of living 
Lizards, and are at the same time so illustrative 
of contrivances for the adjustment of the same 
