Fig. 12.—Lower jaw-bone of Megalosaurus, with teeth.
The genus Megalosaurus—now rendered classic through the labours of Professors Buckland, Phillips, and Owen—may be regarded as the type of the carnivorous Dinosaurs; and it affords an excellent and instructive instance of the gradual restoration of the skeleton of a new monster from more or less fragmentary remains. Certain very excusable errors were at first made in the restoration, but these have since been rectified by a comparison with the allied American forms, such as Allosaurus, of which nearly entire skeletons have of late been discovered in strata of Jurassic age—in fact, the same rock in Colorado as that in which the huge Atlantosaurus bones lay hid. The accompanying woodcut ([Fig. 13]) shows how the skeleton has been restored in the light of these later discoveries of Professor Marsh. The large bones of the limbs of these formidable flesh-eating monsters were hollow, and many of the vertebræ, as well as some of those of the feet, contained cavities, or were otherwise lightened in order to give the creature a greater power of rapid movement.
Fig. 13.—Skeleton of Megalosaurus, restored. (After Meyer.)
It is not very difficult to imagine a Megalosaur lying in wait for his prey (perhaps a slender, harmless little mammal of the ant-eater type) with his hind limbs bent under his body, so as to bring the heels to the ground, and then with one terrific bound from those long legs springing on to the prey, and holding the mammal tight in its clawed fore limbs, as a cat might hold a mouse. Then the sabre-like teeth would be brought into action by the powerful jaws, and soon the flesh and bones of the victim would be gone! (See [Plate VI.])
A CARNIVOROUS DINOSAUR, MEGALOSAURUS BUCKLANDI.
Length about 25 feet.