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Dragons of the Air

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<h2>CHAPTER III A REPTILE IS KNOWN BY ITS BONES</h2> Such are a few illustrations of ways in which reptiles resemble other animals, and differ from them, in the organs by means of which the classification of animals is made. But such an idea is incomplete without noticing that the bony framework of the body associated with such vital organs also shows in its chief parts that reptiles are easily recognised by their bones. I will therefore briefly state how reptiles are defined in some regions of the skeleton, for in tracing the history of reptile life the bones are the principal remains of animals preserved in the rocks; and the soft organs which have perished can only be inferred to have been present from the persistence of durable characteristic parts of the skeleton, which are associated with those soft organs in animals which exist at the present day, and are unknown in other animals in which the skeleton is different. <h4>THE HANG OF THE LOWER JAW</h4> The manner in which the lower jaw is connected with the skull yields one of the most easily recog[Pg 12]nised differences between the great groups of vertebrate animals. In Mammals.—In every mammal—such as the Dog or Sheep—the lower jaw, which is formed of one bone on each side, joins directly on to the head of the animal, and moves upon a bone of the skull which is named the temporal bone. This character is sufficient to prove, by the law of association of soft and hard parts of the body, that such an animal had warm blood and suckled its young. <div class="figcenter"> FIG. 2 <ANTIMG src="images/i_029.jpg" width-obs="640" height-obs="191" alt="FIG. 2" title="FIG. 2" /> Comparison to show the articulation with the lower jaw in a mammal and Pterodactylus Kochi. The quadrate bone is lettered Q in this Pterodactyle, and comes between the skull and the lower jaw like the quadrate bone in a bird and in lizards. </div> In Birds.—In birds a great difference is found in this region of the head. The temporal bone, which it will be more convenient to name the squamosal bone, from its squamous or scale-like form, is still a part of the brain case, and assists in covering the brain itself, exactly as among mammals. But the lower jaw is now made up of five or six bones. And between the hindermost and the squamosal there is an intervening bar of bone, unknown among mammalia, which moves upon the skull by a joint, just as the lower jaw moves upon it. This movable bone unites with parts of the palate and the face, and is known as the quadrate bone. Its presence proves that the animal possessing it laid eggs, and if the[Pg 13] face bones join its outer border just above the lower jaw, it proves that the animal possessed hot blood. In Reptiles.—All reptiles are also regarded as possessing the quadrate bone. But the squamosal bone with which it always unites is in less close union with the brain case, and never covers the brain itself. Serpents show an extreme divergence in this condition from birds, for the squamosal bone appears to be a loose external plate of bone which rests upon the compact brain case and gives attachment to the quadrate bone which is as free as in a bird. Among Lizards the quadrate bone is usually almost as free. In the other division of existing Reptilia, including Crocodiles, the New Zealand lizard-like reptile Hatteria, called Tuatera, and Turtles, the squamosal and quadrate bones are firmly united with the bones of the brain case, face, and palate, so that the quadrate bone has no movement; and the same condition appears in amphibians, such as Toads and Frogs. With these conditions of the quadrate bone are associated cold blood, terrestrial life, and young developed from eggs. In Fishes.—Bony fishes, and all others in which separate bones build up the skull, differ from Reptiles and Birds much as those animals differ from Mammals. The union of the lower jaw with the skull becomes complicated by the presence of additional bones. The quadrate bone still forms a pulley articulation upon which the lower jaw works, but between it and the squamosal bone is the characteristic bone of the fish known as the hyomandibular, commonly connected with opercular bones and metapterygoid which intervene, and help to unite the quadrate with the brain case. In the Cartila[Pg 14]ginous fishes there is only one bone connecting the jaws with the skull on each side. This appears to prove that just as the structure of the arch of bones suspending the jaw may be complicated by the mysterious process called segmentation, which separates a bone into portions, so simplification and variation may result because the primitive divisions of the material cease to be made which exists before bones are formed. The principal regions of the skull and skeleton all vary in the chief groups of animals with backbones; so that the Reptile may be recognised among fossils, even in extinct groups of animals and occasionally restored from a fragment, to the aspect which characterised it while it lived. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 15] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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