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The flying sauria of Iura are still characteristic enough to leave at least the possibility that the winged world, which in value still stands below the mammalia, assisted in giving to that secondary period its proper type.
The truth is, these sauria prey upon the crocodile's eggs, no doubt to the particular annoyance of the crocodile, who are, therefore, it is more than probable, no friends of the monitors. The Egyptian would love the monitor for feeding upon the crocodile germ, as much as for his timely warning of the approach of the uncouth enemy.
The flying sauria, if not in their organs of flying, which remind us more of the bat, at least in head, neck, and toes, are closely connected with the birds the oldest birds of the Jura and chalk formations, with their tail-spines similar to the reptilia and their teeth in the beak to the sauria.
Not only have by far the most of the now extinct genera and species their family and stem-companions, and many even their genera and species companions, in the living world, but also those genera whose nearer relations are now extinct as, for instance, the club-moss-trees, the trilobites, the ammonites, the belemnites, the sauria, the nummulites, show still a very perceptible relationship with living genera, and can be quite accurately included in the botanical and zoölogical systems; nay, they even fill up gaps in it.
For if we find the first real bones of birds only in the Jura and in the Chalk-formation, they are birds with tail-spines and with teeth in the beak hence still related to the reptilia or the sauria. Only after them do the higher orders of mammalia appear; and last of all organisms, man.
A similar fortune was experienced by the ferns and club-mosses which formed whole forests in the carboniferous period. Other groups which once played a great rôle, are now wholly extinct; for instance, the trilobites of the primary, the sauria of the secondary, the nummulites of the tertiary periods.
"The alligator," began he, "belongs to the order Sauria, or lizards. This order is again divided into several families, one of which is termed Crocodilida, or crocodiles; and the family of crocodiles is subdivided into three genera, each of which has several species." "How many species in all?" demanded Basil.
The meridian altitude of the fifth day has to be looked for where ocean-life, with its sauria and innumerable animals, gave its impress to organic life on earth, and the air was filled with inhabitants: geology calls such a time the secondary period of trias, Iura, and chalk.
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