Читать книгу Dragons of the Air: An Account of Extinct Flying Reptiles - H. G. Seeley - Страница 11

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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.