That they lived exclusively upon land and in air is improbable, considering the circumstances under which their remains are found. It is likely that they haunted the sea-shores, and, while sometimes rowing themselves over the water with their powerful wings, used the wing-membrane as does the Bat to enclose their prey and bring it to the mouth. But the superior development of the pneumatic foramina suggest that their activity was greater than in ordinary sea-birds.
The large Cambridge Pterodactyles probably pursued a more substantial prey than dragon-flies. Their teeth are well suited for fish, but probably fowl and small mammal, and even fruits, made a variety in their food. As the lord of the cliff, it may be presumed to have taken toll of all animals that could be conquered with tooth and nail. From its brain it might be regarded as an intelligent animal. The jaws present indications of having been sheathed with a horny covering, and some of the species show a rugose anterior termination of the snout suggestive of fleshy lips like those of the Bat, and which may have been similarly used to stretch and clean the wing-membrane.
The high temperature, coupled with the sub-aerial life, are opposed to the idea of the animal having been naked. The undisturbed condition of the skeleton and some points of structure are opposed to the idea of their having had large feathers. The absence of such remains does not favour the hypothesis of their having been covered with scales, though in the legs of birds a scaly covering is met with. I should anticipate for them a filamentous downy feather, or hair, like a Bat's. The Bat combs its hair with its claws, and the Ornithosaurians may have used their claws in a similar way.
They cannot be supposed to have been gregarious, from the large number of species relatively to specimens. The reproduction may have been much the same as in birds; and the young were probably reared with affectionate care[X].
[X] Mr Carruthers has shown me crushed Turtle-like eggs from the Stonesfield slate, which in the external pitting of the egg-shell are not so different from some birds as to preclude a suspicion that they might possibly be Ornithosaurian.
The following notes indicate structures in perfect specimens from the Lithographic slate which supplement the fragmentary remains from the Cambridge Greensand[Y].
[Y] The German animals form different family groups. And it cannot be inferred that the structures seen in them pertained to Cambridge specimens.
In the head, Cambridge specimens show no trace of the parts which are between the brain-cavity and the fore-part of the jaw. The form and condition of the orbits, nares, and of the space between them, vary in German specimens. Some Birds and certain Ruminants, such as deer, the giraffe, &c., have an interspace between the orbits and nares corresponding to that in some Pterodactyles, but no such perforation is found in living reptiles. In mammals it appears to be surrounded by the frontal, nasal, lachrymal, and often by the maxillary bone. In birds the bones appear to be the lachrymal, nasal, maxillary and premaxillary, as is the case with Pterodactyles, except that the nasal bones would seem sometimes to be excluded. The chief peculiarity of the Pterodactyle skull in this region is made by the malar bone (and, according to some authors, the maxillary also) sending up a process to meet the lachrymal. This is not seen in birds, but is characteristic of many mammals and reptiles.
The premaxillary bone is single, as in birds and Iguana; but it appears to attain as great a development as in birds, and to occupy the portion of the jaw which among reptiles and mammals is made by the maxillary bone. Owing to the great development of the premaxillary bones, the exterior nares are placed far back toward the middle of the skull as in birds, and not near the tip of the snout as in living reptiles and most mammals.