Fig. 17.—Skull of Ceratosaurus. Top view. (After Marsh.)
The teeth of this horned Dinosaur resemble those of the Megalosaur. Its eyes were protected by protuberances of the skull just above the cavity in which the eye was placed (see Figs. [17] and [18]). The brain was a good deal larger in proportion to the size of the animal than in Brontosaurus and its allies; so perhaps we may infer that it was endowed with greater intelligence, as it certainly was more active in its habits. The fore limbs, as in Megalosaurus, were small, and some of the fingers ended in powerful claws, which no doubt it used to good purpose.
Perhaps the most remarkable of all the Dinosaurs was a diminutive creature only two feet in length, which was related to those we have just been considering, and whose skeleton has been found almost entire in the now famous Lithographic Stone of Solenhofen in Bavaria. Of this unique type, the Compsognathus, the skeleton of which is in many ways so bird-like, Professor Huxley remarks, “It is impossible to look at the conformation of this strange reptile and to doubt that it hopped, or walked, in an erect or semi-erect position, after the manner of a bird, to which its long neck, slight head, and small anterior limbs must have given it an extraordinary resemblance.” (See [Fig. 19].)
Fig. 18.—Skull of Ceratosaurus nasicornis. (After Marsh.)
At the head of this chapter are placed the words of Dr. Mantell, “Fossils have been eloquently and appropriately termed Medals of Creation,” and the eloquent passage by which those words are followed may be transcribed here. He goes on to say, "For as an accomplished numismatist, even when the inscription of an ancient and unknown coin is illegible, can from the half-obliterated effigy, and from the style of art, determine with precision the people by whom, and the period when, it was struck: in like manner the geologist can decipher these natural memorials, interpret the hieroglyphics with which they are inscribed, and from apparently the most insignificant relics trace the history of beings of whom no other records are extant, and ascertain the forms and habits of unknown types of organisation whose races are swept from the face of the earth, ere the creation of man, and the creatures which are his contemporaries. Well might the illustrious Bergman exclaim, "Sunt instar nummorum memoralium quæ de præteritis globi nostri fatis testantur, ubi omnia silent monumenta historica.""