The course of creation

by John Anderson

Plesiosaurus.

2. The Plesiosaurus is allied in some respects to the former, but in other points differs so materially, and possesses characters so strange, as to claim for it a degree of monstrosity unparalleled, even amid the ruins of the old world. Here we have the union of the serpent and chameleon, with a trunk and tail having the proportions of an ordinary quadruped. The mechanism of the lungs and ribs is peculiar, showing that the animal must have breathed with such force and rapidity, as to have rendered the color of the skin changeable, like the chameleon or dying dolphin. The neck bore a resemblance to that of the swan; the feet and motions were allied to those of the turtle; and, from the varied intensity of its inspirations, it is conjectured that the creature inhabited the shallow pools and marshy waters along the coast. The body would thus be concealed among the rank vegetable aquatics; while, with its long flexible neck, it would be prepared suddenly to pounce upon its prey. Mr. Conybeare compares the Plesiosaurus to a turtle stripped of its shell; and the ribs, being connected by transverse abdominal processes, present a close analogy to those of the chameleon. Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri have been found in the secondary strata, from the lias to the chalk inclusive; of the former, twelve species are known and described, and nearly twenty of the latter. The most remarkable of the enalio-saurii or marine reptiles, is the Plesiosaurus-dolichodeirus, discovered in the lias of Lyme-Regis, and which is fertile in the remains of all the animals of that remote and wonder-producing epoch.

Pterodactyle.

3. Another example, taken from the lias, is of its kind even more startling than either of the preceding. This consists of the remains of an animal called the Pterodactyle, or flying reptile, which, more than anything ever conceived or bred in poet’s brain, resembles what Milton must have intended, when to the great arch-fiend he gave a form and flexibility of body, that

“Swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”

Certainly each and one of all these evolutions the Pterodactyle could execute, and he was amply provided with the fitting instruments to perform them. This animal possessed a head intermediate betwixt that of a bird and a reptile, which in both cases is comparatively small, and offering the least resistance to the medium through which it passed, in quest whether of pleasure or subsistence. The hands were of the most prehensile character, adapted by the claws attached at once to fix and firmly grasp its prey, and, when needed for pursuit, to swing itself squirrel-like from branch to branch, and from tree to tree. The wings resembled those of the bat, but in length and size allied to nothing in existing nature, and finding their match only among the dragons of romance. Then, as to feet and limbs, these were of such a construction as to allow the animal safely to repose after its toils in a standing position on the ground, or to perch on trees, or to climb on rocks, or disport from cliff to cliff. The eyes were large; the wings terminated in fingers, from which projected long hooks; the beak was furnished with about sixty sharp piercing teeth. No wonder that naturalists were astonished at such heterogenous combinations, as they rose upon their sight—

“That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth;

And yet are on’t;”

and knew not whether to ascribe them to the air, or the earth, or the domain of waters. But, in the hands of Cuvier, the entire structure and relations of the several parts of the framework have been explained and developed; the libellulæ and other insects on which they fed have been detected in the same rocks with their own relics; and out of that apparent mass of inconsistencies and contradictions, the genius of the skillful anatomist has produced one of the most striking examples of the harmony that pervades all nature, that has been extended through all ages, and that manifests the bounteous care of the common Creator in adapting all living things, each after its kind, to the conditions of its existence.