gleaned from the very surface of the universe of life—that such should have been the case. But it does appear strange, because under the regulation, it would seem, of a principle of adaptation more occult, and, if I may so speak, more _Providential_, that no sooner are the huge mammals introduced _as a group_, than, with but a few exceptions, the reptiles appear in greatly diminished proportions. They no longer occupy the platform to its full extent of _height_. Even in tropical countries, in which certain families of mammals still attain to the maximum size, the reptiles, if we except the crocodilean family, a few harmless turtles, and the degraded boas and pythons, are a small and comparatively unimportant race. Nay, the existing giants of the class—the crocodiles and boas—hardly equal in bulk the third-rate reptiles of the ages of the Oolite and the Wealden. So far as can be seen, there is no reason deduceable from the nature of things, why the country that sustains a mammal bulky as the elephant, should not also support a reptile huge as the Iguanodon; or why the Megalosaurus, Hylæosaurus, and Dicynodon, might not have been contemporary with the lion, tiger, and rhinoceros. The change which took place in the reptile group immediately on their dethronement at the close of the Secondary period, seems scarce less strange than that sung by Milton:— “Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed In bigness to surpass earth’s giant sons, Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Thronged numberless; like that pygmean race Beyond the Indian mount; or fairy elves, Whose midnight revels, by a forest side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while, overhead, the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course.”