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The membrane, commonly called its wing, is framed chiefly upon bones answering precisely to those of the human hand; its extinct congener, the pterodactyle, had the same membrane extended upon the fore-finger only, which in that animal was prolonged to an extraordinary extent.
Thus, though the pterodactyle is a reptile which has become modified in such a manner as to enable it to fly, and therefore, as might be expected, presents some points of resemblance to other animals which fly; it has, so to speak, gone off the line which leads directly from reptiles to birds, and has become disqualified for the changes which lead to the characteristic organisation of the latter class.
Moreover, if the remarkable and minute similarity of the coracoid of a pterodactyle to that of a bird be merely the result of function and no sign of genetic affinity, it is not inconceivable that pelvic and leg resemblances of Dinosauria to birds may be functional likewise, though such an explanation is, of course, by no means necessary to support the view maintained in this book.
In the extinct pterodactyles which were truly flying reptiles we meet with an approximation to the structure of the bat, but in the pterodactyle we have only one finger elongated in each hand: a striking example of how the very same function may be provided for by a modification similar in principle, yet surely manifesting the independence of its origin.
These diagrams of the plesiosaurus, the ichthyosaurus, the pterodactyle, give you a notion of some of these extinct reptiles. And here is a cast of the pterodactyle and bones of the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus, just as fresh as if it had been recently dug up in a churchyard. Thus, in the reptile class, there are no less than half of the orders which are absolutely extinct.
Had it been declared that we are living in the Eocene epoch, the idea would not be so extravagant, for the great reptiles of the Upper Chalk, the Mosasaurus, Pliosaurus, and Pterodactyle, and many others, as well as so many genera of chambered univalves, had already disappeared from the earth, and the marine fauna had made a greater approach to our own by nearly the entire difference which separates it from the fauna of the Cretaceous seas.
Mast and sail flew up in an instant together, and I saw them carried up to prodigious height, resembling in appearance a pterodactyle, one of those strong birds of the infant world. We lay there, our blood running cold with unspeakable terror.
Darwin has discovered, in the reptile-peopled Galapagos Islands, in the South Sea, a marine saurian from three to four feet long. The megalosaurus was an enormous lizard a land creature, also carnivorous. The pterodactyle was another lizard, but furnished with wings to pursue its prey in the air, and varying in size between a cormorant and a snipe.
Professor Huxley seems inclined to cut the Gordian knot by considering the shoulder structure of the pterodactyle as independently educed, and having relation to physiology only. This conception is one which harmonizes completely with the views here advocated, and with those of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who also calls in direct modification to the aid of "Natural Selection."
"And," we insist, "you would rectify the matter by smothering the young monster at once because he has wings, and, young to their use, flutters them about in a way discomposing to your nerves, and destructive to those notions of propriety of which this creature you stop not to inquire whether angel or pterodactyle has not yet learned even the existence.
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