Genhral Characters. KEPTILES. General Characters. 
nature passed from forms peculiar to creatures of the 
waters, to those which characterize the vertehrated 
animals of the land.” In the account of the creation, 
in the first chapter of Genesis, we appear to have rep- 
tiles mentioned twice. At the commencement of the 
fifth day, or epoch, after the waters had been gathered 
together, and dry land had made its appearance, lighted 
up and warmed by the rays of the sun, “ God said. Let 
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatoe 
that hath life.” While the land was still in a soft, 
miry state, these huge aquatic reptiles of an amphibious 
nature, the remains of which are now found in the 
deposits of the fifth period, made their appearance, 
mixed with “ great whales,” and other moving animals 
“ which the waters brought forth abundantly.” Then 
were formed those immense creatures of most fantastic 
forms, the massiveness of whose bodies required deep 
ponds in which they could disport themselves, and in 
the thick mud at the bottom of which their impress has 
renwined. They perished, no doubt, in proportion as 
moisture failed tliem on a soil in process of evaporation; 
and by the time the crust of the earth had become firm 
and hard, the immense Ichtliyosauri and Plesiosauri, 
animals with the body of lizards, the fins or paddles of 
the turtle, and the neck of the serpent, had disappeared 
as living beings. At this period it was, or on the sixth 
day, that terrestrial reptiles were formed, when “ God 
said. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after 
his kind, cattle and creeping thing.” By the time the 
clief-d' ceuvre of creation, Man, made his appearance, 
many species of reptiles had not only lived tipon the 
globe, but had disappeared from its surface. Mixed up 
with the traditions of almost all nations, and veiled in 
the liaze and obscurity of antiquity, tliere have been 
handed down also to us accounts of curious monsters, 
dragons, &c., which have been generally looked upon 
as fabulous and treated with derision. Along with the 
Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri mentioned above, wliich 
lived exclusively during tlie fifth period of creation, in 
the muddy waters on the surface of the earth, there 
existed extraordinary creatures, which were provided 
with wings after the manner of the bats of the present 
day, by means of which they were able to raise them- 
selves in the air. These animals are known by the 
name of Pterodactyles, and their form and proportions 
are such as might realize those of these mythological 
dragons mentioned above. Bory St. Vincent does not 
liesitate, alluding to this subject, to say, “ that it would 
not be rash to conjecture, that in the sixth age (anterior 
to that which sanctifies the repose of the sabbath) some 
of those monstrous reptiles which might have joined to 
the characters of Plesiosauri the wings of Pterodactyles, 
infested the flat shores where the people that lived upon 
fisli had begun to establish themselves.” “ We do not 
find their skeletons,” he adds, “ any more than we do 
those of man ; but the remembrance of their existence 
is preserved by tradition, in the dragons of China, of 
Japan, Siam, and Greece, as well as in the Hydra and 
Lerna” of the latter country. Be this as it may, the 
belief in the existence of wonderful and monstrous forms 
of reptiles has not yet disappeared, as even in the nine- 
teenth century, the semi-fabulous monster, the Sea 
Serpent, “ though repudiated by all sufficiently learned 
to be sceptical,” still forms part of the creed of honest 
Jack-tars and other dwellers on the mighty deep, and 
which is reported still to pay an annual visit to tire 
Scandinavian fishermen on the shores of Norway ! 
In Great Britain, the number of species of existing 
reptiles is very limited, and the numerical proportion 
of individuals likewise is very small compared with ho* 
