At first, as has been emphasized, this work was largely morphological, dealing both with the individual skeletal elements and later with the bony framework as a whole. Then came the endeavor to clothe the bones with sinews and with flesh—to imagine, in other words, the life-appearance of the ages-departed form—with such of its habits as could be deduced from structure of body, tooth, and limb. Next came the working out of systematic series of vertebrates and their marshalling into species, genera, and larger groups, and much time was thus spent, especially when rapid discovery brought a continual stream of new forms before the systematist, and hence some appreciation of the countless hosts of bygone creatures which peopled the world in the geologic past. This systematic work, however, was based upon the most painstaking morphologic comparisons and so the science was still within the scope of comparative anatomy. In connection with taxonomic research came increasingly tangible evidence in favor of the law of evolution; investigators turned to the working out of phyletic series showing the actual record of the successive evolutionary changes that the various races had undergone. Coupled with this evolutionary evidence came an increased attention to the sequential occurrence in successive geologic strata, and the stratigraphic distribution of vertebrates became known with greater and greater detail. Then followed the assemblage of faunas, which brought the study of the fossil forms within the realm of historical geology, rather than being the mere phylogeny of a single race, and the value of vertebrate fossils as horizon markers became more and more appreciated by the stratigrapher. They serve to supplement the knowledge gained from the invertebrates, and in this connection are especially valuable in that they often give data concerning continental formations about which invertebrate paleontology is largely silent. _Rise of Vertebrate Paleontology in Europe._