_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 Cartilaginous 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. CHAPTER IV ANIMALS WHICH FLY The nature of a reptile is now sufficiently intelligible for something to be said concerning flight, and structures by means of which some animals lift themselves in the air. It is not without interest to remember that, from the earliest periods in human records, representations have been made of animals which were furnished with wings, yet walked upon four feet, and in their typical aspect have the head shaped like that of a bird. They are commonly named Dragons. FLYING DRAGONS [Illustration: FIG. 3 From _The Battle between Bel and the Dragon_]