Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/136

50 more to the very remarkable fact, that, so far as the present evidence goes, the dry land of those Triassic epochs was as extensive in the old and northern New World as it is at the present day, and that, just as the mammalian and ornithic faunæ of these regions lead us to group North America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa in one vast Arctogæal province, so the affinities of the land reptiles of the Trias lead to the conclusion that at that epoch the same regions constituted a similar great distributional area.

 

Sir, who had taken the Chair, inquired as to the lowest formation in which the bird-like character of Dinosaurians was apparent, and was informed that it was to be recognized as low as the Trias, if not lower.

Mr. insisted on the necessity of defining the common plan both of the Reptilia and of the ordinal groups before they could be treated of in classification. He bad come to conclusions as to the grouping and classification of Saurians somewhat different from