Nos. 2 & 3.—The Pterodactyle.
Nos. 2 and 3 are restorations of a flying reptile or dragon, called Pterodactyle, from the Greek words pteron, a wing, and dactylos, a finger; because the wings are mainly supported by the outer finger, enormously lengthened and of proportionate strength, which, nevertheless, answers to the little finger of the human hand. The wings consisted of folds of skin, like the leather wings of the bat; and the Pterodactyles were covered with scales, not with feathers: the head, though somewhat resembling in shape that of a bird, and supported on a long and slender neck, was provided with long jaws, armed with teeth; and altogether the structure of these extinct members of the reptilian class is such as to rank them amongst the most extraordinary of all the creatures yet discovered in the ruins of the ancient earth.
Remains of the Pterodactyle were first discovered, in 1784, by Prof. Collini, in the lithographic slate of Aichstadt, in Germany, which slate is a member of the oolitic formations: the species so discovered was at first mistaken for a bird, and afterwards supposed to be a large kind of bat, but had its true reptilian nature demonstrated by Baron Cuvier, by whom it was called the Pterodactylus longirostris, or Long-beaked Pterodactyle: it was about the size of a curlew.
A somewhat larger species—the Pterodactylus macronyx, or Long-clawed Pterodactyle—was subsequently discovered by the Rev. Dr. Buckland, in the lias formation of Lyme Regis: its wings, when expanded, must have been about four feet from tip to tip. The smallest known species—the Pterodactylus brevirostris, or Short-beaked Pterodactyle—was discovered in the lithographic slate at Solenhofen, Germany, and has been described by Professor Soemmering.
Remains of the largest known kinds of Pterodactyle have been discovered more recently in chalk-pits, at Burham, in Kent. The skull of one of these species—the Pterodactylus Cuvieri—was about twenty inches in length, and the animal was upborne on an expanse of wing of probably not less than eighteen feet from tip to tip. The restored specimen of this species is numbered 3.
A second very large kind of Pterodactyle—the Pterodactylus compressirostris, or Thin-beaked Pterodactyle—had a head from fourteen to sixteen inches in length, and an expanse of wing, from tip to tip, of fifteen feet. The remains of this species have also been found in the chalk of Kent. From the same formation and locality a third large kind of Pterodactyle, although inferior in size to the two foregoing, has been discovered, called the Pterodactylus conirostris, and also—until the foregoing larger kinds were discovered—Pterodactylus giganteus. The long, sharp, conical teeth in the jaws of the Pterodactyles indicate them to have preyed upon other living animals; their eyes were large, as if to enable them to fly by night. From their wings projected fingers, terminated by long curved claws, and forming a powerful paw, wherewith the animal was enabled to creep and climb, or suspend itself from trees. It is probable, also, that the Pterodactyles had the power of swimming; some kinds, e.g., the Pterodactylus Gemmingi, had a long and stiff tail. “Thus,” writes Dr. Buckland, “like Milton’s Fiend, all qualified for all services and all elements, the creature was a fit companion for the kindred reptiles that swarmed in the seas, or crawled on the shores of a turbulent planet.
‘The Fiend,
O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.’