PREFACE T WAS a student of law at a time when Sir -- Richard Owen
was lecturing on Extinct Fossil Reptiles. The skill of the great
master, who built bones together as a child builds with a box of
bricks, taught me that the laws which determine the forms of
animals were less understood at that time than the laws which
govern the relations of men in their country. The laws of Nature
promised a better return of new knowledge for reasonable study. A
lecture on Flying Reptiles determined me to attempt to fathom the
mysteries which gave new types of life to the Earth and afterwards
took them away. Thus I became the very humble servant of the
Dragons of the Air. Knowing but little about them I went to
Cambridge, and for ten years worked with the Professor of Geology,
the late Rev. Adam Sedg- wick, LL.D., F.R.S., in gathering their
bones from the so-called Cambridge Coprolite bed, the Cambridge
Greensand. The bones came in thousands, battered and broken, but
instructive as better materials might not have been. My rooms
became filled with remains of existing birds, lizards, and mammals,
which threw light on the astonishing collection of old bones which
I assisted in bringing together for the University. In time I had
something to say about Flying Animals which was new. The story was
told in the theatre of the Royal Institution, in a series of
lectures. Some of them were repeated in several English towns.
There was still much to learn of foreign forms of flying animals
but at last, with the aid of the Government grant administered by
the Royal Society, and the chiefs of the great Continental museums,
I saw all the specimens in Europe. So I have again written out my
lectures, with the aid of thelatest discoveries, and the story of
animal structure has lost nothing in interest as a twice-told tale.
It still presents in epitome the story of life on the Earth. He who
understands whence the Flying Reptiles came, how they endured, and
disappeared from the Earth, has solved some of the greatest
mysteries of life. I have only contributed something towards
solving the problems. In telling my story, chiefly of facts in
Nature, an attempt is made to show how a naturalist does his work,
in the hope that perhaps a few readers will find happiness in
following the workings of the laws of life. Such an illumination
has proved to many worth seeking, a solid return for labour, which
is not to be marketed on the Exchange, but may be taken freely
without exhausting the treasury of Natures truths. Such outlines of
knowledge as here are offered to a larger public, may also, I
believe, be acceptable to students of science and scientific men.
The drawings given in illustration of the text have been made for
me by Miss E. B. Seeley. KENSINGTON, May, 1901 H. G. S. vii
CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PACK FLYING REPTILES . I CHAPTER II. HOW A
REPTILE IS KNOWN . ... CHAPTER III. 4 A REPTILE IS KNOWN BY ITS
BONES . II CHAPTER IV. ANIMALS WHICH FLY . . . . . 15 CHAPTER V.
DISCOVERY OF THE PTERODACTYLS . CHAPTER VI. HOW ANIMALS ARE
INTERPRETED BY THEIR BONES . CHAPTER VII. INTERPRETATION OF
PTERODACTYLES BY THEIR SOFT PARTS . . . ... CHAPTER VIII. . . 27 37
45 THE PLAN OF THE SKELETON .. . 58 CHAPTER IX. THE BACKBONE, OR
VERTEBRAL COLUMN . 78
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