�y��vlog

Ornithodel′phia, the lowest of the three sub-classes of mammals, same as Monotremata—from the ornithic character of the urogenital organs.—adjs.

We have seen it stated that the brilliant colours of the flamingo do but reflect the brilliancy of its environment—that these bright colours have been acquired through the �sthetic tastes of the bird and by "selective preference"; then, proceeding to enlarge on a "fascinating theory," its expounder goes on from particular to general, and to demonstrate that this Darwinian principle is generally operative in ornithic coloration.

To quote again the admission of Huxley: “Birds are no more modified reptiles than reptiles are modified birds, the reptilian and ornithic types being both in reality somewhat different superstructures, raised upon one and the same ground-plan”—that ground-plan being the idea of the air-breathing oviparous vertebrate, and the reptile181 representing the less specialized and less ornate building.

Those great reptilian lords, the biped Saurians of the Mesozoic, already foreshadowed his erect posture, though their limbs may have been more ornithic than mammalian.

In point of fact, there can be no doubt that the Pterodactyls must have been provided with some approach to a mammalian or ornithic heart, as they certainly were with great breast-muscles attached to a keel in the breast-bone for working their large membranous wings.