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diff --git a/38013.txt b/38013.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90b2ff5 --- /dev/null +++ b/38013.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5615 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Animals of the Past, by Frederic A. Lucas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Animals of the Past + +Author: Frederic A. Lucas + +Release Date: November 14, 2011 [EBook #38013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANIMALS OF THE PAST *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + ANIMALS OF THE PAST + + [Illustration: Phororhacos, a Patagonian Giant of the Miocene. + _From a drawing by Charles R. Knight._] + + _Science for Everybody_ + + + + + ANIMALS OF THE PAST + + BY FREDERIC A. LUCAS + + + _Curator of the Division of Comparative Anatomy, + United States National Museum_ + + FULLY ILLUSTRATED + + NEW YORK + McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. + 1901 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY S. S. MCCLURE CO. + 1901, BY MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. + + PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1901. + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY + + Use of scientific names, xvi; estimates of age of earth, xvii; + restorations by Mr. Knight, xviii; Works of Reference, xix. + + + I. FOSSILS, AND HOW THEY ARE FORMED + + Definition of fossils, 1; fossils may be indications of animals + or plants, 2; casts and impressions, 3; why fossils are not more + abundant, 4; conditions under which fossils are formed, 5; + enemies of bones, 6; Dinosaurs engulfed in quicksand, 8; + formation of fossils, 9; petrified bodies frauds, 10; natural + casts, 10; leaves, 13; incrustations, 14; destruction of + fossils, 15; references, 17. + + + II. THE EARLIEST KNOWN VERTEBRATES + + Methods of interrogating Nature, 18; thickness of sedimentary + rocks, 20; earliest traces of life, 21; early vertebrates + difficult of preservation, 22; armored fishes, 23; abundance of + early fishes, 25; destruction of fish, 26; carboniferous sharks, + 29; known mostly from teeth and spines, 30; references, 32. + + + III. IMPRESSIONS OF THE PAST + + Records of extinct animals, 33; earliest traces of animal life, + 34; formation of tracks, 35; tracks in all strata, 36; discovery + of tracks, 37; tracks of Dinosaurs, 39; species named from + tracks, 41; footprints aid in determining attitude of animals, + 43; tracks at Carson City, 45; references, 47. + + + IV. RULERS OF THE ANCIENT SEAS + + The Mosasaurs, 49; history of the first known Mosasaur, 50; jaws + of reptiles, 53; extinction of Mosasaurs, 55; the sea-serpent, + 56; Zeuglodon, 58; its habits, 59; Koch's Hydrarchus, 61; bones + collected by Mr. Schuchert, 63; abundance of sharks, 64; the + great Carcharodon, 65; arrangement of sharks' teeth, 67; + references, 68. + + + V. BIRDS OF OLD + + Earliest birds, 70; wings, 71; study of young animals, 73; the + curious Hoactzin, 74; first intimation of birds, 76; + Archaeopteryx, 77; birds with teeth, 78; cretaceous birds, 79; + Hesperornis, 80; loss of power of flight, 81; covering of + Hesperornis, 82; attitude of Hesperornis, 83; curious position + of legs, 84; toothed birds disappointing, 85; early development + of birds, 86; eggs of early birds, 87; references, 88. + + + VI. THE DINOSAURS + + Discovery of Dinosaur remains, 90; nearest relatives of + Dinosaurs, 91; relation of birds to reptiles, 92; brain of + Dinosaurs, 93; parallel between Dinosaurs and Marsupials, 95; + the great Brontosaurus, 96; food of Dinosaurs, 97; habits of + Diplodocus, 99; the strange Australian Moloch, 100; combats of + Triceratops, 101; skeleton of Triceratops, 102; Thespesius and + his kin, 104; the carnivorous Ceratosaurus, 106; Stegosaurus, + the plated lizard, 106; preferences, 109. + + + VII. READING THE RIDDLES OF THE ROCKS + + Fossils regarded as sports of nature, 111; qualifications of a + successful collector, 112; chances of collecting, 114; + excavation of fossils, 115; strengthening fossils for shipment, + 117; great size of some specimens, 118; the preparation of + fossils, 119; mistakes of anatomists, 120; reconstruction of + Triceratops, 121; distinguishing characters of bones, 122; the + skeleton a problem in mechanics, 124; clothing the bones with + flesh, 127; the covering of animals, 127; outside ornamentation, + 129; probabilities in the covering of animals, 130; impressions + of extinct animals, 131; mistaken inferences from bones of + Mammoth, 133; coloring of large land animals, 134; color + markings of young animals, 136; references, 137. + + + VIII. FEATHERED GIANTS + + Legend of the Moa, 139; our knowledge of the Moas, 141; some + Moas wingless, 142; deposits of Moa bones, 143; legend of the + Roc, 144; discovery of AEpyornis, 145; large-sounding names, 146; + eggs of great birds, 147; the Patagonian Phororhacos, 149; the + huge Brontornis, 150; development of giant birds, 153; + distribution of flightless birds, 154; relation between + flightlessness and size, 156; references, 156. + + + IX. THE ANCESTRY OF THE HORSE + + North America in the Eocene age, 160; appearance of early + horses, 163; early domestication of the horse, 165; the toes of + horses, 166; Miocene horses small, 167; evidence of genealogy of + the horse, 170; meaning of abnormalities, 170; changes in the + climate and animals of the West, 174; references, 176. + + + X. THE MAMMOTH + + The story of the killing of the Mammoth, 177; derivation of the + word "mammoth," 178; mistaken ideas as to size of the Mammoth, + 179; size of Mammoth and modern elephants, 180; finding of an + entire Mammoth, 182; birthplace of the Mammoth, 184; beliefs + concerning its bones, 185; the range of the animal, 186; + theories concerning the extinction of the Mammoth, 188; Man and + Mammoth, 189; origin of the Alaskan Live Mammoth Story, 190; + traits of the Innuits, 192; an entire Mammoth recently found, + 194; references, 195. + + + XI. THE MASTODON + + Differences between Mastodon and Mammoth, 198; affinities of the + Mastodon, 200; vestigial structures, 201; distribution of + American Mastodon, 203; first noticed in North America, 204; + thought to be carnivorous, 206; Koch's Missourium, 208; former + abundance of Mastodons, 209; appearance of the animal, 210; its + size, 211; was man contemporary with Mastodon? 213; the Lenape + stone, 215; legend of the big buffalo, 216; references, 218. + + + XII. WHY DO ANIMALS BECOME EXTINCT? + + Extinction sometimes evolution, 221; over-specialization as a + cause for extinction, 222; extinction sometimes unaccountable, + 223; man's capability for harm small in the past, 224; old + theories of great convulsions, 226; changes in nature slow, 227; + the case of Lingula, 228; local extermination, 229; the Moas and + the Great Auk, 232; the case of large animals, 233; + inter-dependence of living beings, 234; coyotes and fruit, 236; + Shaler on the Miocene flora of Europe, 236; man's desire for + knowledge, 238. + + INDEX, 243 + + + + +NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The original drawings, made especially for this book, are by Charles R. +Knight and James M. Gleeson, under the direction of Mr. Knight. The fact +that the originals of these drawings have been presented to and accepted +by the United States National Museum is evidence of their scientific +value. Mr. Knight has been commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, +the United States National Museum, and the New York Museum of Natural +History, to do their most important pictures of extinct animals. He is +the one modern artist who can picture prehistoric animals with artistic +charm of presentation as well as with full scientific accuracy. In this +instance, the author has personally superintended the artist's work, so +that it is as correct in every respect as present knowledge makes +possible. Of the minor illustrations, some are by Mr. Bruce Horsfall, an +artist attached to the staff of the New York Museum of Natural History, +and all have been drawn with the help of and under the author's +supervision. + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Fig. Page + + Phororhacos, a Patagonian Giant of the Miocene _From a Drawing + by Charles R. Knight_ _Frontispiece_ + + 1. Diplomystus, an Ancient Member of the Shad Family _From the + fish-bed at Green River, Wyoming. From a specimen in the United + States National Museum._ 4 + + 2. Bryozoa, from the Shore of the Devonian Sea that Covered + Eastern New York _From a specimen in Yale University Museum, + prepared by Dr. Beecher._ 10 + + 3. Skeleton of a Radiolarian Very Greatly Enlarged 17 + + 4. Cephalaspis and Loricaria, an Ancient and a Modern Armored + Fish 24 + + 5. Pterichthys, the Wing Fish 32 + + 6. Where a Dinosaur Sat Down 38 + + 7. Footprints of Dinosaurs on the Brownstone of the Connecticut + Valley _From a slab in the museum of Amherst College._ 40 + + 8. The Track of a Three-toed Dinosaur 47 + + 9. A Great Sea Lizard, _Tylosaurus Dyspelor From a drawing by + J. M. Gleeson._ 52 + + 10. Jaw of a Mosasaur, Showing the Joint that Increased the + Swallowing Capacity of that Reptile 54 + + 11. Koch's Hydrarchus. Composed of Portions of the Skeletons of + Several Zeuglodons 62 + + 12. A Tooth of Zeuglodon, One of the "Yoke Teeth," from which it + derives the name 69 + + 13. Archaeopteryx, the Earliest Known Bird _From the specimen in + the Berlin Museum._ 70 + + 14. Nature's Four Methods of Making a Wing: Bat, Pteryodactyl, + Archaeopteryx, and Modern Bird 72 + + 15. Young Hoactzins 75 + + 16. Hesperornis, the Great Toothed Diver _From a drawing by J. + M. Gleeson._ 82 + + 17. Archaeopteryx _As Restored by Mr. Pycraft._ 89 + + 18. Thespesius, a Common Herbivorous Dinosaur of the Cretaceous + _From a drawing by Charles R. Knight._ 90 + + 19. A Hind Leg of the Great Brontosaurus, the Largest of the + Dinosaurs 96 + + 20. A Single Vertebra of Brontosaurus 97 + + 21. Moloch, a Modern Lizard that Surpasses the Stegosaurs in All + but Size _From a drawing by J. M. Gleeson._ 100 + + 22. Skeleton of Triceratops 103 + + 23. The Horned Ceratosaurus, a Carnivorous Dinosaur _From a + drawing by J. M. Gleeson._ 106 + + 24. Stegosaurus, an Armored Dinosaur of the Jurassic _From a + drawing by Charles R. Knight._ 108 + + 25. Skull of Ceratosaurus _From a specimen in the United States + National Museum._ 110 + + 26. Triceratops, He of the Three-horned Face _From a statuette + by Charles R. Knight._ 126 + + 27. A Hint of Buried Treasures 137 + + 28. Relics of the Moa 140 + + 29. Eggs of Feathered Giants, AEpyornis, Ostrich, Moa, Compared + with a Hen's Egg 148 + + 30. Skull of Phororhacos Compared with that of the Race-horse + Lexington 151 + + 31. Leg of a Horse Compared with that of the Giant Moa 152 + + 32. The Three Giants, Phororhacos, Moa, Ostrich 158 + + 33. Skeleton of the Modern Horse and of His Eocene Ancestor 161 + + 34. The Development of the Horse 168 + + 35. The Mammoth _From a drawing by Charles R. Knight._ 176 + + 36. Skeleton of the Mammoth in the Royal Museum of St. + Petersburg 183 + + 37. The Mammoth _As engraved by a Primitive Artist on a Piece of + Mammoth-Tusk._ 196 + + 38. Tooth of Mastodon and of Mammoth 199 + + 39. The Missourium of Koch _From a Tracing of the Figure + Illustrating Koch's Description._ 207 + + 40. The Mastodon _From a drawing by J. M. Gleeson._ 210 + + 41. The Lenape Stone, Reduced 219 + + + + +_INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY_ + + +_At the present time the interest in the ancient life of this earth is +greater than ever before, and very considerable sums of money are being +expended to dispatch carefully planned expeditions to various parts of +the world systematically to gather the fossil remains of the animals of +the past. That this interest is not merely confined to a few scientific +men, but is shared by the general public, is shown by the numerous +articles, including many telegrams, in the columns of the daily papers. +The object of this book is to tell some of the interesting facts +concerning a few of the better known or more remarkable of these extinct +inhabitants of the ancient world; also, if possible, to ease the strain +on these venerable animals, caused by stretching them so often beyond +their due proportions._ + +_The book is admittedly somewhat on the lines of Mr. Hutchinson's +"Extinct Monsters" and "Creatures of Other Days," but it is hoped that +it may be considered with books as with boats, a good plan to build +after a good model. The information scattered through these pages has +been derived from varied sources; some has of necessity been taken from +standard books, a part has been gathered in the course of museum work +and official correspondence; for much, the author is indebted to his +personal friends, and for a part, he is under obligations to friends he +has never met, who have kindly responded to his inquiries. The endeavor +has been conscientiously made to exclude all misinformation; it is, +nevertheless, entirely probable that some mistakes may have crept in, +and due apology for these is hereby made beforehand._ + +_The author expects to be taken to task for the use of scientific names, +and the reader may perhaps sympathize with the old lady who said that +the discovery of all these strange animals did not surprise her so much +as the fact that anyone should know their names when they were found. +The real trouble is that there are no common names for these animals. +Then, too, people who call for easier names do not stop to reflect +that, in many cases, the scientific names are no harder than others, +simply less familiar, and, when domesticated, they cease to be hard: +witness mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, boa constrictor, all of +which are scientific names. And if, for example, we were to call the +Hyracotherium a Hyrax beast it would not be a name, but a description, +and not a bit more intelligible._ + +_Again, it is impossible to indicate the period at which these creatures +lived without using the scientific term for it--Jurassic, Eocene, +Pliocene, as the case may be--because there is no other way of doing +it._ + +_Some readers will doubtless feel disappointed because they are not told +how many years ago these animals lived. The question is often asked--How +long ago did this or that animal live? But when the least estimate puts +the age of the earth at only 10,000,000 years, while the longest makes +it 6,000,000,000, it does seem as if it were hardly worth while to name +any figures. Even when we get well toward the present period we find the +time that has elapsed since the beginning of the Jurassic, when the +Dinosaurs held carnival, variously put at from 15,000,000 to 6,000,000 +years; while from the beginning of the Eocene, when the mammals began to +gain the supremacy, until now, the figures vary from 3,000,000 to +5,000,000 years. So the question of age will be left for the reader to +settle to his or her satisfaction._ + +_The restorations of extinct animals may be considered as giving as +accurate representations of these creatures as it is possible to make; +they were either drawn by Mr. Knight, whose name is guarantee that they +are of the highest quality, or by Mr. Gleeson, with the aid of Mr. +Knight's criticism. That they are infallibly correct is out of the +question; for, as Dr. Woodward writes in the preface to "Extinct +Monsters," "restorations are ever liable to emendation, and the present +... will certainly prove no exception to the rule." As a striking +instance of this, it was found necessary at the last moment to change +the figure of Hesperornis, the original life-like portrait proving to be +incorrect in attitude, a fact that would have long escaped detection but +for the Pan-American Exposition. The connection between the two is +explained on page 76. However, the reader may rest assured that these +restorations are infinitely more nearly correct than many figures of +living animals that have appeared within the last twenty-five years, and +are even now doing duty._ + +_The endeavor has been made to indicate, at the end of each chapter, the +museums in which the best examples of the animals described may be seen, +and also some book or article in which further information may be +obtained. As this book is intended for the general reader, references to +purely technical articles have, so far as possible, been avoided, and +none in foreign languages mentioned._ + +_For important works of reference on the subject of paleontology, the +reader may consult "A Manual of Paleontology," by Alleyne Nicholson and +R. Lydekker, a work in two volumes dealing with invertebrates, +vertebrates, and plants, or "A Text-Book of Paleontology," by Karl von +Zittel, English edition, only the first volume of which has so far been +published. An admirable book on the vertebrates is "Outlines of +Vertebrate Paleontology," by Arthur Smith Woodward. It is to be +understood that these are not at all "popular" in their scope, but +intended for students who are already well advanced in the study of +zooelogy._ + + + + +ANIMALS OF THE PAST I + +FOSSILS, AND HOW THEY ARE FORMED + + "_How of a thousand snakes each one + Was changed into a coil of stone._" + + +Fossils are the remains, or even the indications, of animals and plants +that have, through natural agencies, been buried in the earth and +preserved for long periods of time. This may seem a rather meagre +definition, but it is a difficult matter to frame one that will be at +once brief, exact, and comprehensive; fossils are not necessarily the +remains of extinct animals or plants, neither are they, of necessity, +objects that have become petrified or turned into stone. + +Bones of the Great Auk and Rytina, which are quite extinct, would hardly +be considered as fossils; while the bones of many species of animals, +still living, would properly come in that category, having long ago been +buried by natural causes and often been changed into stone. And yet it +is not essential for a specimen to have had its animal matter replaced +by some mineral in order that it may be classed as a fossil, for the +Siberian Mammoths, found entombed in ice, are very properly spoken of as +fossils, although the flesh of at least one of these animals was so +fresh that it was eaten. Likewise the mammoth tusks brought to market +are termed fossil-ivory, although differing but little from the tusks of +modern elephants. + +Many fossils indeed merit their popular appellation of petrifactions, +because they have been changed into stone by the slow removal of the +animal or vegetable matter present and its replacement by some mineral, +usually silica or some form of lime. But it is necessary to include +'indications of plants or animals' in the above definition because some +of the best fossils may be merely impressions of plants or animals and +no portion of the objects themselves, and yet, as we shall see, some of +our most important information has been gathered from these same +imprints. + +Nearly all our knowledge of the plants that flourished in the past is +based on the impressions of their leaves left on the soft mud or smooth +sand that later on hardened into enduring stone. Such, too, are the +trails of creeping and crawling things, casts of the burrows of worms +and the many footprints of the reptiles, great and small, that crept +along the shore or stalked beside the waters of the ancient seas. The +creatures themselves have passed away, their massive bones even are +lost, but the prints of their feet are as plain to-day as when they were +first made. + +Many a crustacean, too, is known solely or mostly by the cast of its +shell, the hard parts having completely vanished, and the existence of +birds in some formations is revealed merely by the casts of their eggs; +and these natural casts must be included in the category of fossils. + +Impressions of vertebrates may, indeed, be almost as good as actual +skeletons, as in the case of some fishes, where the fine mud in which +they were buried has become changed to a rock, rivalling porcelain in +texture; the bones have either dissolved away or shattered into dust at +the splitting of the rock, but the imprint of each little fin-ray and +every threadlike bone is as clearly defined as it would have been in a +freshly prepared skeleton. So fine, indeed, may have been the mud, and +so quiet for the time being the waters of the ancient sea or lake, that +not only have prints of bones and leaves been found, but those of +feathers and of the skin of some reptiles, and even of such soft and +delicate objects as jelly fishes. But for these we should have little +positive knowledge of the outward appearance of the creatures of the +past, and to them we are occasionally indebted for the solution of some +moot point in their anatomy. + +The reader may possibly wonder why it is that fossils are not more +abundant; why, of the vast majority of animals that have dwelt upon the +earth since it became fit for the habitation of living beings, not a +trace remains. This, too, when some objects--the tusks of the Mammoth, +for example--have been sufficiently well preserved to form staple +articles of commerce at the present time, so that the carved handle of +my lady's parasol may have formed part of some animal that flourished at +the very dawn of the human race, and been gazed upon by her +grandfather a thousand times removed. The answer to this query is that, +unless the conditions were such as to preserve at least the hard parts +of any creature from immediate decay, there was small probability of its +becoming fossilized. These conditions are that the objects must be +protected from the air, and, practically, the only way that this happens +in nature is by having them covered with water, or at least buried in +wet ground. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Diplomystus, an Ancient Member of the Shad +Family. From the Fishbed at Green River, Wyoming. _From a specimen in +the United States National Museum._] + +If an animal dies on dry land, where its bones lie exposed to the +summer's sun and rain and the winter's frost and snow, it does not take +these destructive agencies long to reduce the bones to powder; in the +rare event of a climate devoid of rain, mere changes of temperature, by +producing expansion and contraction, will sooner or later cause a bone +to crack and crumble. + +Usually, too, the work of the elements is aided by that of animals and +plants. Every one has seen a dog make way with a pretty good-sized bone, +and the Hyena has still greater capabilities in that line; and ever +since vertebrate life began there have been carnivorous animals of some +kind to play the role of bone-destroyers. Even were there no carnivores, +there were probably then, as now, rats and mice a-plenty, and few +suspect the havoc small rodents may play with a bone for the grease it +contains, or merely for the sake of exercising their teeth. Now and then +we come upon a fossil bone, long since turned into stone, on which are +the marks of the little cutting teeth of field mice, put there long, +long ago, and yet looking as fresh as if made only last week. These +little beasts, however, are indirect rather than direct agents in the +destruction of bones by gnawing off the outer layers, and thus +permitting the more ready entrance of air and water. Plants, as a rule, +begin their work after an object has become partly or entirely buried in +the soil, when the tiny rootlets find their way into fissures, and, +expanding as they grow, act like so many little wedges to force it +asunder. + +Thus on dry land there is small opportunity for a bone to become a +fossil; but, if a creature so perishes that its body is swept into the +ocean or one of its estuaries, settles to the muddy bottom of a lake or +is caught on the sandy shoals of some river, the chances are good that +its bones will be preserved. They are poorest in the ocean, for unless +the body drifts far out and settles down in quiet waters, the waves +pound the bones to pieces with stones or scour them away with sand, +while marine worms may pierce them with burrows, or echinoderms cut +holes for their habitations; there are more enemies to a bone than one +might imagine. + +Suppose, however, that some animal has sunk in the depths of a quiet +lake, where the wash of the waves upon the shore wears the sand or rock +into mud so fine that it floats out into still water and settles there +as gently as dew upon the grass. Little by little the bones are covered +by a deposit that fills every groove and pore, preserving the mark of +every ridge and furrow; and while this may take long, it is merely a +matter of time and favorable circumstance to bury the bones as deeply as +one might wish. Scarce a reader of these lines but at some time has cast +anchor in some quiet pond and pulled it up, thickly covered with sticky +mud, whose existence would hardly be suspected from the sparkling waters +and pebbly shores. If, instead of a lake, our animal had gone to the +bottom of some estuary into which poured a river turbid with mud, the +process of entombment would have been still more rapid, while, had the +creature been engulfed in quicksand, it would have been the quickest +method of all; and just such accidents did take place in the early days +of the earth as well as now. At least two examples of the great Dinosaur +Thespesius have been found with the bones all in place, the thigh bones +still in their sockets and the ossified tendons running along the +backbone as they did in life. This would hardly have happened had not +the body been surrounded and supported so that every part was held in +place and not crushed, and it is difficult to see any better agency for +this than burial in quicksand. + +If such an event as we have been supposing took place in a part of the +globe where the land was gradually sinking--and the crust of the earth +is ever rising and falling--the mud and sand would keep on accumulating +until an enormously thick layer was formed. The lime or silica contained +in the water would tend to cement the particles of mud and grains of +sand into a solid mass, while the process would be aided by the pressure +of the overlying sediment, the heat created by this pressure, and that +derived from the earth beneath. During this process the animal matter of +bones or other objects would disappear and its place be taken by lime or +silica, and thus would be formed a layer of rock containing fossils. The +exact manner in which this replacement is effected and in which the +chemical and mechanical changes occur is very far from being definitely +known--especially as the process of "fossilization" must at times have +been very complicated. + +In the case of fossil wood greater changes have taken place than in the +fossilization of bone, for there is not merely an infiltration of the +specimen but a complete replacement of the original vegetable by mineral +matter, the interior of the cells being first filled with silica and +their walls replaced later on. So completely and minutely may this +change occur that under the microscope the very cellular structure of +the wood is visible, and as this varies according to the species, it is +possible, by microscopical examination, to determine the relationship of +trees in cases where nothing but fragments of the trunk remain. + +The process of fossilization is at best a slow one, and soft substances +such as flesh, or even horn, decay too rapidly for it to take place, so +that all accounts of petrified bodies, human or otherwise, are either +based on deliberate frauds or are the result of a very erroneous +misinterpretation of facts. That the impression or cast of a body +_might_ be formed in nature, somewhat as casts have been made of those +who perished at Pompeii, is true; but, so far, no authentic case of the +kind has come to light, and the reader is quite justified in +disbelieving any report of "a petrified man." + +Natural casts of such hard bodies as shells are common, formed by the +dissolving away of the original shell after it had become enclosed in +mud, or even after this had changed to stone, and the filling up of this +space by the filtering in of water charged with lime or silica, which +is there deposited, often in crystalline form. In this way, too, are +formed casts of eggs of reptiles and birds, so perfect that it is +possible to form a pretty accurate opinion as to the group to which they +belong. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Bryozoa from the Shore of the Devonian Sea that +Covered Eastern New York. _From a specimen in Yale University Museum, +prepared by Dr. Beecher._] + +Sometimes it happens that shells or other small objects imbedded in +limestone have been dissolved and replaced by silica, and in such cases +it is possible to eat away the enveloping rock with acid and leave the +silicified casts. By this method specimens of shells, corals, and +bryozoans are obtained of almost lace-like delicacy, and as perfect as +if only yesterday gathered at the sea-shore. Casts of the interior of +shells, showing many details of structure, are common, and anyone who +has seen clams dug will understand how they are formed by the entrance +of mud into the empty shell. + +Casts of the kernels of nuts are formed in much the same way, and +Professor E. H. Barbour has thus described the probable manner in which +this was done. When the nuts were dropped into the water of the ancient +lake the kernel rotted away, but the shell, being tough and hard, would +probably last for years under favorable circumstances. Throughout the +marls and clays of the Bad Lands (of South Dakota) there is a large +amount of potash. This is dissolved by water, and then acts upon quartz, +carrying it away in solution. This would find its way by infiltration +into the interior of the nut. At the same time with this process, +carrying lime carbonate in solution was going on, so that doubtless the +stone kernels, consisting of pretty nearly equal parts of lime and +silica, were deposited within the nuts. These kernels, of course, became +hard and flinty in time, and capable of resisting almost any amount of +weathering. Not so the organic shell; this eventually would decay away, +and so leave the filling or kernel of chalcedony and lime.[1] + +[1] _Right here is the weak spot in Professor Barbour's explanation, and +an illustration of our lack of knowledge. For it is difficult to see why +the more enduring husk should not have become mineralized equally with +the cavity within._ + +"Fossil leaves" are nothing but fine casts, made in natural moulds, and +all have seen the first stages in their formation as they watched the +leaves sailing to the ground to be covered by mud or sand at the next +rain, or dropping into the water, where sooner or later they sink, as we +may see them at the bottom of any quiet woodland spring. + +Impressions of leaves are among the early examples of color-printing, +for they are frequently of a darker, or even different, tint from that +of the surrounding rock, this being caused by the carbonization of +vegetable matter or to its action on iron that may have been present in +the soil or water. Besides complete mineralization, or petrifaction, +there are numerous cases of incomplete or semi-fossilization, where +modern objects, still retaining their phosphate of lime and some animal +matter even, are found buried in rock. This takes place when water +containing carbonate of lime, silica, or sometimes iron, flows over beds +of sand, cementing the grains into solid but not dense rock, and at the +same time penetrating and uniting with it such things as chance to be +buried. In this way was formed the "fossil man" of Guadeloupe, West +Indies, a skeleton of a modern Carib lying in recent concretionary +limestone, together with shells of existing species and fragments of +pottery. In a similar way, too, human remains in parts of Florida have, +through the infiltration of water charged with iron, become partially +converted into limonite iron ore; and yet we know that these bones have +been buried within quite recent times. + +Sometimes we hear of springs or waters that "turn things into stone," +but these tales are quite incorrect. Waters there are, like the +celebrated hot springs of Auvergne, France, containing so much carbonate +of lime in solution that it is readily deposited on objects placed +therein, coating them more or less thickly, according to the length of +time they are allowed to remain. This, however, is merely an +encrustation, not extending into the objects. In a similar way the +precipitation of solid material from waters of this description forms +the porous rock known as tufa, and this often encloses moss, twigs, and +other substances that are in no way to be classed with fossils. + +But some streams, flowing over limestone rocks, take up considerable +carbonate of lime, and this may be deposited in water-soaked logs, +replacing more or less of the woody tissue and thus really partially +changing the wood into stone. + +The very rocks themselves may consist largely of fossils; chalk, for +example, is mainly made up of the disintegrated shells of simple marine +animals called foraminifers, and the beautiful flint-like "skeletons" of +other small creatures termed radiolarians, minute as they are, have +contributed extensively to the formation of some strata. + +Even after an object has become fossilized, it is far from certain that +it will remain in good condition until found, while the chance of its +being found at all is exceedingly small. When we remember that it is +only here and there that nature has made the contents of the rocks +accessible by turning the strata on edge, heaving them into cliffs or +furrowing them with valleys and canyons, we realize what a vast number +of pages of the fossil record must remain not only unread, but unseen. +The wonder is, not that we know so little of the history of the past, +but that we have learned so much, for not only is nature careless in +keeping the records--preserving them mostly in scattered fragments--but +after they have been laid away and sealed up in the rocks they are +subject to many accidents. Some specimens get badly flattened by the +weight of subsequently deposited strata, others are cracked and twisted +by the movements of the rocks during periods of upheaval or subsidence, +and when at last they are brought to the surface, the same sun and rain, +snow and frost, from which they once escaped, are ready to renew the +attack and crumble even the hard stone to fragments. Such, very briefly, +are some of the methods by which fossils may be formed, such are some of +the accidents by which they may be destroyed; but this description must +be taken as a mere outline and as applying mainly to vertebrates, or +backboned animals, since it is with them that we shall have to deal. It +may, however, show why it is that fossils are not more plentiful, why we +have mere hints of the existence of many animals, and why myriads of +creatures may have flourished and passed away without so much as leaving +a trace of their presence behind. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_A very valuable and interesting article by Dr. Charles A. White, +entitled "The Relation of Biology to Geological Investigation," will be +found in the Report of the United States National Museum for 1892. This +comprises a series of essays on the nature and scientific uses of fossil +remains, their origin, relative chronological value and other questions +pertaining to them. The United States National Museum has published a +pamphlet, part K, Bulletin 39, containing directions for collecting and +preparing fossils, by Charles Schuchert; and another, part B, Bulletin +39, collecting recent and fossil plants, by F. H. Knowlton._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Skeleton of a Radiolarian Very Greatly +Enlarged.] + + + + +II + +THE EARLIEST KNOWN VERTEBRATES + + "_We are the ancients of the earth + And in the morning of the times._" + + +There is a universal, and perfectly natural, desire for information, +which in ourselves we term thirst for knowledge and in others call +curiosity, that makes mankind desire to know how everything began and +causes much speculation as to how it all will end. This may take the +form of a wish to know how a millionaire made his first ten cents, or it +may lead to the questions--What is the oldest animal? or, What is the +first known member of the great group of backboned animals at whose head +man has placed himself? and, What did this, our primeval and +many-times-removed ancestor, look like? The question is one that has +ever been full of interest for naturalists, and Nature has been +interrogated in various ways in the hope that she might be persuaded to +yield a satisfactory answer. The most direct way has been that of +tracing back the history of animal life by means of fossil remains, but +beyond a certain point this method cannot go, since, for reasons stated +in various places in these pages, the soft bodies of primitive animals +are not preserved. To supplement this work, the embryologist has studied +the early stages of animals, as their development throws a side-light on +their past history. And, finally, there is the study of the varied forms +of invertebrates, some of which have proved to be like vertebrates in +part of their structure, while others have been revealed as vertebrates +in disguise. So far these various methods have yielded various answers, +or the replies, like those of the Delphic Oracle, have been variously +interpreted so that vertebrates are considered by some to have descended +from the worms, while others have found their beginnings in some animal +allied to the King Crab. + +Every student of genealogy knows only too well how difficult a matter it +is to trace a family pedigree back a few centuries, how soon the family +names become changed, the line of descent obscure, and how soon gaps +appear whose filling in requires much patient research. How much more +difficult must it be, then, to trace the pedigree of a race that +extends, not over centuries, but thousands of centuries; how wide must +be some of the gaps, how very different may the founders of the family +be from their descendants! The words old and ancient that we use so +often in speaking of fossils appeal to us somewhat vaguely, for we speak +of the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, and call a family old +that can show a pedigree running back four or five hundred years, when +such as these are but affairs of yesterday compared with even recent +fossils. + +Perhaps we may better appreciate the meaning of these words by recalling +that, since the dawn of vertebrate life, sufficient of the earth's +surface has been worn away and washed into the sea to form, were the +strata piled directly one upon the other, fifteen or twenty miles of +rock. This, of course, is the sum total of sedimentary rocks, for such a +thickness as this is not to be found at any one locality; because, +during the various ups and downs that this world of ours has met with, +those portions that chanced to be out of water would receive no deposit +of mud or sand, and hence bear no corresponding stratum of rock. The +reader may think that there is a great deal of difference between +fifteen and twenty miles, but this liberal margin is due to the +difficulty of measuring the thickness of the rocks, and in Europe the +sum of the measurable strata is much greater than in North America. + +The earliest traces of animal life are found deeper still, beneath +something like eighteen to twenty-five miles of rock, while below this +level are the strata in which dwelt the earliest living things, +organisms so small and simple that no trace of their existence has been +left, and we infer that they were there because any given group starts +in a modest way with small and simple individuals. + +At the bottom, then, of twenty miles of rocks the seeker for the +progenitor of the great family of backboned animals finds the scant +remains of fish-like animals that the cautious naturalist, who is much +given to "hedging," terms, not vertebrates, but prevertebrates or the +forerunners of backboned animals. The earliest of these consist of small +bony plates, and traces of a cartilaginous backbone from the Lower +Silurian of Colorado, believed to represent relatives of Chimaera and +species related to those better-known forms Holoptychius and Osteolepis, +which occur in higher strata. There are certainly indications of +vertebrate life, but the remains are so imperfect that little more can +be said regarding them, and this is also true of the small conical teeth +which occur in the Lower Silurian of St. Petersburg, and are thought to +be the teeth of some animal like the lamprey. + +A little higher up in the rocks, though not in the scale of life, in the +Lower Old Red Sandstone of England, are found more numerous and better +preserved specimens of another little fish-like creature, rarely if ever +exceeding two inches in length, and also related (probably) to the +hag-fishes and lampreys that live to-day. + +These early vertebrates are not only small, but they were cartilaginous, +so that it was essential for their preservation that they should be +buried in soft mud as soon as possible after death. Even if this took +place they were later on submitted to the pressure of some miles of +overlying rock until, in some cases, their remains have been pressed out +thinner than a sheet of paper, and so thoroughly incorporated into the +surrounding stone that it is no easy matter to trace their shadowy +outlines. With such drawbacks as these to contend with, it can scarcely +be wondered at that, while some naturalists believe these little +creatures to be related to the lamprey, others consider that they belong +to a perfectly distinct group of animals, and others still think it +possible that they may be the larval or early stages of larger and +better-developed forms. + +Still higher up we come upon the abundant remains of numerous small +fish-like animals, more or less completely clad in bony armor, +indicating that they lived in troublous times when there was literally a +fight for existence and only such as were well armed or well protected +could hope to survive. A parallel case exists to-day in some of the +rivers of South America, where the little cat-fishes would possibly be +eaten out of existence but for the fact that they are covered--some of +them very completely--with plate-armor that enables them to defy their +enemies, or renders them such poor eating as not to be worth the taking. +The arrangement of the plates or scales in the living Loricaria is very +suggestive of the series of bony rings covering the body of the ancient +Cephalaspis, only the latter, so far as we know, had no side-fins; but +the creatures are in no wise related, and the similarity is in +appearance only. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Cephalaspis and Loricaria, an Ancient and a +Modern Armored Fish.] + +Pterichthys, the wing fish, was another small, quaint, armor-clad +creature, whose fossilized remains were taken for those of a crab, and +once described as belonging to a beetle. Certainly the buckler of this +fish, which is the part most often preserved, with its jointed, bony +arms, looks to the untrained eye far more like some strange crustacean +than a fish, and even naturalists have pictured the animal as crawling +over the bare sands by means of those same arms. These fishes and their +allies were once the dominant type of life, and must have abounded in +favored localities, for in places are great deposits of their protective +shields jumbled together in a confused mass, and, save that they have +hardened into stone, lying just as they were washed up on the ancient +beach ages ago. How abundant they were may be gathered from the fact +that it is believed their bodies helped consolidate portions of the +strata of the English Old Red Sandstone. Says Mr. Hutchinson, speaking +of the Caithness Flagstones, "They owe their peculiar tenacity and +durability to the dead fishes that rotted in their midst while yet they +were only soft mud. For just as a plaster cast boiled in oil becomes +thereby denser and more durable, so the oily and other matter coming +from decomposing fish operated on the surrounding sand or mud so as to +make it more compact." + +It may not be easy to explain how it came to pass that fishes dwelling +in salt water, as these undoubtedly did, were thus deposited in great +numbers, but we may now and then see how deposits of fresh-water fishes +may have been formed. When rivers flowing through a stretch of level +country are swollen during the spring floods, they overflow their banks, +often carrying along large numbers of fishes. As the water subsides +these may be caught in shallow pools that soon dry up, leaving the +fishes to perish, and every year the Illinois game association rescues +from the "back waters" quantities of bass that would otherwise be lost. +Mr. F. S. Webster has recorded an instance that came under his +observation in Texas, where thousands of gar pikes, trapped in a lake +formed by an overflow of the Rio Grande, had been, by the drying up of +this lake, penned into a pool about seventy-five feet long by +twenty-five feet wide. The fish were literally packed together like +sardines, layer upon layer, and a shot fired into the pool would set the +entire mass in motion, the larger gars as they dashed about casting the +smaller fry into the air, a score at a time. Mr. Webster estimates that +there must have been not less than 700 or 800 fish in the pool, from a +foot and a half up to seven feet in length, every one of which perished +a little later. In addition to the fish in the pond, hundreds of those +that had died previously lay about in every direction, and one can +readily imagine what a fish-bed this would have made had the occurrence +taken place in the past. + +From the better-preserved specimens that do now and then turn up, we are +able to obtain a very exact idea of the construction of the bony cuirass +by which Pterichthys and its American cousin were protected, and to make +a pretty accurate reconstruction of the entire animal. These primitive +fishes had mouths, for eating is a necessity; but these mouths were not +associated with true jaws, for the two do not, as might be supposed, +necessarily go together. Neither did these animals possess hard +backbones, and, while Pterichthys and its relatives had arms or fins, +the hard parts of these were not on the inside but on the outside, so +that the limb was more like the leg of a crab than the fin of a fish; +and this is among the reasons why some naturalists have been led to +conclude that vertebrates may have developed from crustaceans. +Pteraspis, another of these little armored prevertebrates, had a less +complicated covering, and looked very much like a small fish with its +fore parts caught in an elongate clam-shell. + +The fishes that we have so far been considering--orphans of the past +they might be termed, as they have no living relatives--were little +fellows; but their immediate successors, preserved in the Devonian +strata, particularly of North America, were the giants of those days, +termed, from their size and presumably fierce appearance, Titantichthys +and Dinichthys, and are related to a fish, _Ceratodus_, still living in +Australia. + +We know practically nothing of the external appearance of these fishes, +great and fierce though they may have been, with powerful jaws and +armored heads, for they had no bony skeleton--as if they devoted their +energies to preying upon their neighbors rather than to internal +improvements. They attained a length of ten to eighteen feet, with a +gape, in the large species called Titanichthys, of four feet, and such a +fish might well be capable of devouring anything known to have lived at +that early date. + +Succeeding these, in Carboniferous times, came a host of shark-like +creatures known mainly from their teeth and spines, for their skeletons +were of cartilage, and belonging to types that have mostly perished, +giving place to others better adapted to the changed conditions wrought +by time. Almost the only living relative of these early fishes is a +little shark, known as the Port Jackson Shark, living in Australian +waters. Like the old sharks, this one has a spine in front of his back +fins, and, like them, he fortunately has a mouthful of diversely shaped +teeth; fortunately, because through their aid we are enabled to form +some idea of the manner in which some of the teeth found scattered +through the rocks were arranged. For the teeth were not planted in +sockets, as they are in higher animals, but simply rested on the jaws, +from which they readily became detached when decomposition set in after +death. To complicate matters, the teeth in different parts of the jaws +were often so unlike one another that when found separately they would +hardly be suspected of having belonged to the same animal. Besides teeth +these fishes, for purposes of offence and defence, were usually armed +with spines, sometimes of considerable size and strength, and often +elaborately grooved and sculptured. As the soft parts perished the teeth +and spines were left to be scattered by waves and currents, a tooth +here, another there, and a spine somewhere else; so it has often +happened that, being found separately, two or three quite different +names have been given to one and the same animal. Now and then some +specimen comes to light that escaped the thousand and one accidents to +which such things were exposed, and that not only shows the teeth and +spines but the faint imprint of the body and fins as well. And from such +rare examples we learn just what teeth and spines go with one another, +and sometimes find that one fish has received names enough for an entire +school. + +These ancient sharks were not the large and powerful fishes that we have +to-day--these came upon the scene later--but mostly fishes of small +size, and, as indicated by their spines, fitted quite as much for +defence as offence. Their rise was rapid, and in their turn they became +the masters of the world, spreading in great numbers through the waters +that covered the face of the earth; but their supremacy was of short +duration, for they declined in numbers even during the Carboniferous +Period, and later dwindled almost to extinction. And while sharks again +increased, they never reached their former abundance, and the species +that arose were swift, predatory forms, better fitted for the struggle +for existence. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_The early fishes make but little show in a museum, both on account of +their small size and the conditions under which they have been +preserved. The Museum of Comparative Zooelogy has a large collection of +these ancient vertebrates, and there is a considerable number of fine +teeth and spines of Carboniferous sharks in the United States National +Museum._ + +_Hugh Miller's "The Old Red Sandstone" contains some charming +descriptions of his discoveries of Pterichthys and related forms, and +this book will ever remain a classic._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Pterichthys, the Wing Fish.] + + + + +III + +IMPRESSIONS OF THE PAST + + "_The weird palimpsest, old and vast, + Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past._" + + +The Rev. H. N. Hutchinson commences one of his interesting books with +Emerson's saying, "that Everything in nature is engaged in writing its +own history;" and, as this remark cannot be improved on, it may well +stand at the head of a chapter dealing with the footprints that the +creatures of yore left on the sands of the sea-shore, the mud of a +long-vanished lake bottom, or the shrunken bed of some water-course. Not +only have creatures that walked left a record of their progress, but the +worms that burrowed in the sand, the shell-fish that trailed over the +mud when the tide was low, the stranded crab as he scuttled back to the +sea--each and all left some mark to tell of their former presence. Even +the rain that fell and the very wind that blew sometimes recorded the +direction whence they came, and we may read in the rocks, also, accounts +of freshets sweeping down with turbid waters, and of long periods of +drouth, when the land was parched and lakes and rivers shrank beneath +the burning sun. + +All these things have been told and retold; but, as there are many who +have not read Mr. Hutchinson's books and to whom Buckland is quite +unknown, it may be excusable to add something to what has already been +said in the first chapter of these impressions of the past. + +The very earliest suggestion we have of the presence of animal life upon +this globe is in the form of certain long dark streaks below the +Cambrian of England, considered to be traces of the burrows of worms +that were filled with fine mud, and while this interpretation may be +wrong there is, on the other hand, no reason why it may not be correct. +Plant and animal life must have had very lowly beginnings, and it is not +at all probable that we shall find any trace of the simple and minute +forms with which they started,[2] though we should not be surprised at +finding hints of the presence of living creatures below the strata in +which their remains are actually known to occur. + +[2] _Within the last few years what are believed to be indications of +bacteria have been described from carboniferous rocks. Naturally such +announcements must be accepted with great caution, for while there is no +reason why this may not be true, it is much more probable that definite +evidence of the effects of bacteria on plants should be found than that +these simple, single-celled organisms should themselves have been +detected._ + +Worm burrows, to be sure, are hardly footprints, but tracks are found in +Cambrian rocks just above the strata in which the supposed burrows +occur, and from that time onward there are tracks a-plenty, for they +have been made, wherever the conditions were favorable, ever since +animals began to walk. All that was needed was a medium in which +impressions could be made and so filled that there was imperfect +adhesion between mould and matrix. Thus we find them formed not only by +the sea-shore, in sands alternately dry and covered, but by the +river-side, in shallow water, or even on land where tracks might be left +in soft or moist earth into which wind-driven dust or sand might lodge, +or sand or mud be swept by the mimic flood caused by a thunder shower. + +So there are tracks in strata of every age; at first those of +invertebrates: after the worm burrows the curious complicated trails of +animals believed to be akin to the king crab; broad, ribbed, ribbon-like +paths ascribed to trilobites; then faint scratches of insects, and the +shallow, palmed prints of salamanders, and the occasional slender sprawl +of a lizard; then footprints, big and little, of the horde of Dinosaurs +and, finally, miles above the Cambrian, marks of mammals. Sometimes, +like the tracks of salamanders and reptiles in the carboniferous rocks +of Pennsylvania and Kansas, these are all we have to tell of the +existence of air-breathing animals. Again, as with the iguanodon, the +foot to fit the track may be found in the same layer of rock, but this +is not often the case. + +Although footprints in the rocks must often have been seen, they seem to +have attracted little or no notice from scientific men until about 1830 +to 1835, when they were almost simultaneously described both in Europe +and America; even then, it was some time before they were generally +conceded to be actually the tracks of animals, but, like worm burrows +and trails, were looked upon as the impressions of sea-weeds. + +The now famous tracks in the "brown stone" of the Connecticut Valley +seem to have first been seen by Pliny Moody in 1802, when he ploughed up +a specimen on his farm, showing small imprints, which later on were +popularly called the tracks of Noah's raven. The discovery passed +without remark until in 1835 the footprints came under the observation +of Dr. James Deane, who, in turn, called Professor Hitchcock's attention +to them. The latter at once began a systematic study of these +impressions, publishing his first account in 1836 and continuing his +researches for many years, in the course of which he brought together +the fine collection in Amherst College. At that time Dinosaurs were +practically unknown, and it is not to be wondered at that these +three-toed tracks, great and small, were almost universally believed to +be those of birds. So it is greatly to the credit of Dr. Deane, who also +studied these footprints, that he was led to suspect that they might +have been made by other animals. This suspicion was partly caused by the +occasional association of four and five-toed prints with the three-toed +impressions, and partly by the rare occurrence of imprints showing the +texture of the sole of the foot, which was quite different from that of +any known bird. + +[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Where a Dinosaur Sat Down.] + +In the light of our present knowledge we are able to read many things in +these tracks that were formerly more or less obscure, and to see in them +a complete verification of Dr. Deane's suspicion that they were not made +by birds. We see clearly that the long tracks called _Anomoepus_, +with their accompanying short fore feet, mark where some Dinosaur +squatted down to rest or progressed slowly on all-fours, as does the +kangaroo when feeding quietly;[3] and we interpret the curious +heart-shaped depression sometimes seen back of the feet, not as the mark +of a stubby tail, but as made by the ends of the slender pubes, bones +that help form the hip-joints. Then, too, the mark of the inner, or +short first, toe, is often very evident, although it was a long time +before the bones of this toe were actually found, and many of the +Dinosaurs now known to have four toes were supposed to have but three. + +[3] _It is to be noted that a leaping kangaroo touches the ground +neither with his heel nor his tail, but that between jumps he rests +momentarily on his toes only; hence impressions made by any creature +that jumped like a kangaroo would be very short._ + +It seems strange, and it is strange, that while so many hundreds of +tracks should have been found in the limited area exposed to view, so +few bones have been found--our knowledge of the veritable animals that +made the tracks being a blank. A few examples have, it is true, been +found, but these are only a tithe of those known to have existed; while +of the great animals that strode along the shore, leaving tracks fifteen +inches long and a yard apart pressed deeply into the hard sand, not a +bone remains. The probability is that the strata containing their bones +lie out to sea, whither their bodies were carried by tides and currents, +and that we may never see more than the few fragments that were +scattered along the seaside. + +That part of the Valley of the Connecticut wherein the footprints are +found seems to have been a long, narrow estuary running southward from +Turner's Falls, Mass., where the tracks are most abundant and most +clear. The topography was such that this estuary was subject to sudden +and great fluctuations of the water-level, large tracts of shore being +now left dry to bake in the sun, and again covered by turbid water which +deposited on the bottom a layer of mud. Over and over again this +happened, forming layer upon layer of what is now stone, sometimes the +lapse of time between the deposits being so short that the tracks of +the big Dinosaurs extend through several sheets of stone; while again +there was a period of drouth when the shore became so dry and firm as to +retain but a single shallow impression. + +[Illustration: Fig. 7.--Footprints of Dinosaurs on the Brownstone of the +Connecticut Valley. _From a slab in the museum of Amherst College._] + +Something of the wealth of animal life that roamed about this estuary +may be gathered from the number of different footprints recorded on the +sands, and these are so many and so varied that Professor Hitchcock in +two extensive reports enumerated over 150 species, representing various +groups of animals. One little point must, however, be borne in mind, +that mere size is no sure indication of differences in dealing with +reptiles, for these long-lived creatures grow almost continuously +throughout life, so that one animal even may have left his footprints +over and over in assorted sizes from one end of the valley to the other. + +The slab shown in Fig. 7 is a remarkably fine example of these +Connecticut River footprints; it shows in relief forty-eight tracks of +the animal called Brontozoum sillimanium and six of a lesser species. +It was quarried near Middletown, in 1778, and for sixty years did duty +as a flagstone, fortunately with the face downwards. When taken up for +repairs the tracks were discovered, and later on the slab, which +measures three by five feet, was transferred to the museum of Amherst +College. + +There is an interesting parallel between the history of footprints in +England and America, for they were noticed at about the same time, 1830, +in both countries; in each case the tracks were in rocks of Triassic +age, and, in both instances, the animals that made them have never been +found. In England, however, the tracks first found were those ascribed +to tortoises, though a little later Dinosaur footprints were discovered +in the same locality. Oddly enough these numerous tracks all run one +way, from west to east, as if the animals were migrating, or were +pursuing some well-known and customary route to their feeding grounds. + +For some reason Triassic rocks are particularly rich in footprints; for +from strata of this same age in the Rhine Valley come those curious +examples so like the mark of a stubby hand that Dr. Kaup christened the +beast supposed to have made them _Cheirotherium_, beast with a hand, +suggesting that they had been made by some gigantic opossum. As the +tracks measure five by eight inches, it would have been rather a large +specimen, but the mammals had not then arisen, and it is generally +believed that the impressions were made by huge (for their kind) +salamander-like creatures, known as labyrinthodonts, whose remains are +found in the same strata. + +Footprints may aid greatly in determining the attitude assumed by +extinct animals, and in this way they have been of great service in +furnishing proof that many of the Dinosaurs walked erect. The +impressions on the sands of the old Connecticut estuary may be said to +show this very plainly, but in England and Belgium is evidence still +more conclusive, in the shape of tracks ascribed to the Iguanodon. These +were made on soft soil into which the feet sank much more deeply than in +the Connecticut sands, and the casts made in the natural moulds show the +impression of toes very clearly. If the animals had walked flat-footed, +as we do, the prints of the toes would have been followed by a long heel +mark, but such is not the case; there are the sharply defined marks of +the toes and nothing more, showing plainly that the Iguanodons walked, +like birds, on the toes alone. More than this, had these Dinosaurs +dragged their tails there would have been a continuous furrow between +the footprints; but nothing of this sort is to be found; on the +contrary, a fine series of tracks, uncovered at Hastings, England, made +by several individuals and running for seventy-five feet, shows +footprints only. Hence it may be fairly concluded that these great +creatures carried their tails clear of the ground, as shown in the +picture of _Thespesius_, the weight of the tail counterbalancing that of +the body. Where crocodilians or some of the short-limbed Dinosaurs have +crept along there is, as we should expect, a continuous furrow between +the imprints of the feet. This is what footprints tell us when their +message is read aright; when improperly translated they only add to the +enormous bulk of our ignorance. + +Some years ago we were treated to accounts of wonderful footprints in +the rock of the prison-yard at Carson City, Nev., which, according to +the papers, not only showed that men existed at a much earlier period +than the scientific supposed, but that they were men of giant stature. +This was clearly demonstrated by the footprints, for they were such as +_might_ have been made by huge moccasined feet, and this was all that +was necessary for the conclusion that they _were_ made by just such +feet. For it is a curious fact that the majority of mankind seem to +prefer any explanation other than the most simple and natural, +particularly in the case of fossils, and are always looking for a +primitive race of gigantic men. + +Bones of the Mastodon and Mammoth have again and again been eagerly +accepted as those of giants; a salamander was brought forward as +evidence of the deluge (_homo diluvii testis_); ammonites and their +allies pose as fossil snakes, and the "petrified man" flourishes +perennially. However, in this case the prints were recognized by +naturalists as having most probably been made by some great ground +sloth, such as the Mylodon or Morotherium, these animals, though +belonging to a group whose headquarters were in Patagonia, having +extended their range as far north as Oregon. That the tracks seemed to +have been made by a biped, rather than a quadruped, was due to the fact +that the prints of the hind feet fell upon and obliterated the marks of +the fore. Still, a little observation showed that here and there prints +of the fore feet were to be seen, and on one spot were indications of a +struggle between two of the big beasts. The mud, or rather the stone +that had been mud, bears the imprints of opposing feet, one set deeper +at the toes, the other at the heels, as if one animal had pushed and the +other resisted. In the rock, too, are broad depressions bearing the +marks of coarse hair, where one creature had apparently sat on its +haunches in order to use its fore limbs to the best advantage. Other +footprints there are in this prison-yard; the great round "spoor" of the +mammoth, the hoofs of a deer, and the paws of a wolf(?), indicating that +hereabout was some pool where all these creatures came to drink. More +than this, we learn that when these prints were made, or shortly after, +a strong wind blew from the southeast, for on that face of the ridges +bounding the margin of each big footprint, we find sand that lodged +against the squeezed-up mud and stuck there to serve as a perpetual +record of the direction of the wind. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_Almost every museum has some specimen of the Connecticut Valley +footprints, but the largest and finest collections are in the museums of +Amherst College, Mass., and Yale University, although, owing to lack of +room, only a few of the Yale specimens are on exhibition. The collection +at Amherst comprises most of the types described by Professor E. +Hitchcock in his "Ichnology of New England," a work in two fully +illustrated quarto volumes. Other footprints are described and figured +by Dr. J. Deane in "Ichnographs from the Sandstone of the Connecticut +River."_ + +[Illustration: Fig. 8.--The Track of a Three-toed Dinosaur.] + + + + +IV + +RULERS OF THE ANCIENT SEAS + + "_A time there was when the universe was darkness and water, + wherein certain animals of frightful and compound mien were + generated. There were serpents, and other creatures with the + mixed shapes of one another...._"--_The Archaic Genesis._ + + +History shows us how in the past nation after nation has arisen, +increased in size and strength, extended its bounds and dominion until +it became the ruling power of the world, and then passed out of +existence, often so completely that nothing has remained save a few +mounds of dirt marking the graves of former cities. And so has it been +with the kingdoms of nature. Just as Greece, Carthage, and Rome were +successively the rulers of the sea in the days that we call old, so, +long before the advent of man, the seas were ruled by successive races +of creatures whose bones now lie scattered over the beds of the ancient +seas, even as the wrecks of galleys lie strewn over the bed of the +Mediterranean. For a time the armor-clad fishes held undisputed sway; +then their reign was ended by the coming of the sharks, who in their +turn gave way to the fish-lizards, the Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. +These, however, were rather local in their rule; but the next group of +reptiles to appear on the scene, the great marine reptiles called +Mosasaurs, practically extended their empire around the world, from New +Zealand to North America. + +We properly call these reptiles great, for so they were; but there are +degrees of greatness, and there is a universal tendency to think of the +animals that have become extinct as much greater than those of the +present day, to magnify the reptile that we never saw as well as the +fish that "got away," and it may be safely said that the greatest of +animals will shrink before a two-foot rule. As a matter of fact, no +animals are known to have existed that were larger than the whales; and, +while there are now no reptiles that can compare in bulk with the +Dinosaurs, there were few Mosasaurs that exceeded in size a first-class +Crocodile. An occasional Mosasaur reaches a length of forty feet, but +such are rare indeed, and one even twenty-five feet long is a large +specimen,[4] while the great Mugger, or Man-eating Crocodile, grows, if +permitted, to a length of twenty-five or even thirty feet, and need not +be ashamed to match his bulk and jaws against those of most Mosasaurs. + +[4] _It is surprising to find Professor Cope placing the length of the +Mosasaurs at 70, 80, or 100 feet, as there is not the slightest basis +for even the lowest of these figures. Professor Williston, the best +authority on the subject, states, in his volume on the "Cretaceous +Reptiles of Kansas," that there is not in existence any specimen of a +Mosasaur indicating a greater length than 45 feet._ + +The first of these sea-reptiles to be discovered has passed into +history, and now reposes in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, after +changing hands two or three times, the original owner being dispossessed +of his treasure by the subtleties of law, while the next holder was +deprived of the specimen by main force. Thus the story is told by M. +Faujas St. Fond, as rendered into English, in Mantell's "Petrifactions +and their Teachings": "Some workmen, in blasting the rock in one of the +caverns of the interior of the mountain, perceived, to their +astonishment, the jaws of a large animal attached to the roof of the +chasm. The discovery was immediately made known to M. Hoffman, who +repaired to the spot, and for weeks presided over the arduous task of +separating the mass of stone containing these remains from the +surrounding rock. His labors were rewarded by the successful extrication +of the specimen, which he conveyed in triumph to his house. This +extraordinary discovery, however, soon became the subject of general +conversation, and excited so much interest that the canon of the +cathedral which stands on the mountain resolved to claim the fossil, in +right of being lord of the manor, and succeeded, after a long and +harassing lawsuit, in obtaining the precious relic. It remained for +years in his possession, and Hoffman died without regaining his +treasure. At length the French Revolution broke out, and the armies of +the Republic advanced to the gates of Maestricht. The town was +bombarded; but, at the suggestion of the committee of savans who +accompanied the French troops to select their share of the plunder, the +artillery was not suffered to play on that part of the city in which the +celebrated fossil was known to be preserved. In the meantime, the canon +of St. Peter's, shrewdly suspecting the reason why such peculiar favor +was shown to his residence, removed the specimen and concealed it in a +vault; but, when the city was taken, the French authorities compelled +him to give up his ill-gotten prize, which was immediately transmitted +to the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, where it still forms one of the +most interesting objects in that magnificent collection." And there it +remains to this day. + +[Illustration: Fig. 9.--A Great Sea Lizard, _Tylosaurus Dyspelor_. _From +a drawing by J. M. Gleeson._] + +The seas that rolled over western Kansas were the headquarters of the +Mosasaurs, and hundreds--aye, thousands--of specimens have been taken +from the chalk bluffs of that region, some of them in such a fine state +of preservation that we are not only well acquainted with their internal +structure, but with their outward appearance as well. They were +essentially swimming lizards--great, overgrown, and distant relatives of +the Monitors of Africa and Asia, especially adapted to a roving, +predatory life by their powerful tails and paddle-shaped feet. Their +cup-and-ball vertebrae indicate great flexibility of the body, their +sharp teeth denote ability to capture slippery prey, and the structure +of the lower jaw shows that they probably ate in a hurry and swallowed +their food entire, or bolted it in great chunks. The jaws of all +reptiles are made up of a number of pieces, but these are usually so +spliced together that each half of the jaw is one inflexible, or nearly +inflexible, mass of bone. In snakes, which swallow their prey entire, +the difficulty of swallowing animals greater in diameter than themselves +is surmounted by having the two halves of the lower jaw loosely joined +at the free ends, so that these may spread wide apart and thus increase +the gape of the mouth. This is also helped by the manner in which the +jaw is joined to the head. The pelican solves the problem by the length +of his mandibles, this allowing so much spring that when open they bow +apart to form a nice little landing net. In the Mosasaurs, as in the +cormorants, among birds, there is a sort of joint in each half of the +lower jaw which permits it to bow outward when opened, and this, aided +by the articulation of the jaw with the cranium, adds greatly to the +swallowing capacity. Thus in nature the same end is attained by very +different methods. To borrow a suggestion from Professor Cope, if the +reader will extend his arms at full length, the palms touching, and then +bend his elbows outward he will get a very good idea of the action of a +Mosasaur's jaw. The western sea was a lively place in the day of the +great Mosasaurs, for with them swam the king of turtles, Archelon, as +Mr. Wieland has fitly named him, a creature a dozen feet or more in +length, with a head a full yard long, while in the shallows prowled +great fishes with massive jaws and teeth like spikes. + +[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Jaw of a Mosasaur, Showing the Joint that +Increased the Swallowing Capacity of that Reptile.] + +There, too, was the great, toothed diver, Hesperornis (see page 83), +while over the waters flew pterodactyls, with a spread of wing of twenty +feet, largest of all flying creatures; and, not improbably--nay, very +probably--fish-eaters, too; and when each and all of these were seeking +their dinners, there were troublous times for the small fry in that old +Kansan sea. + +And then there came a change; to the south, to the west, to the north, +the land was imperceptibly but surely rising, perhaps only an inch or +two in a century, but still rising, until "The Ocean in which flourished +this abundant and vigorous life was at last completely inclosed on the +west by elevations of sea-bottom, so that it only communicated with the +Atlantic and Pacific at the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Sea." + +The continued elevation of both eastern and western shores contracted +its area, and when ridges of the sea-bottom reached the surface, forming +long, low bars, parts of the water-area were included, and connection +with salt-water prevented. Thus were the living beings imprisoned and +subjected to many new risks to life. The stronger could more readily +capture the weaker, while the fishes would gradually perish through the +constant freshening of the water. With the death of any considerable +class, the balance of food-supply would be lost, and many large species +would disappear from the scene. The most omnivorous and enduring would +longest resist the approach of starvation, but would finally yield to +inexorable fate--the last one caught by the shifting bottom among +shallow pools, from which his exhausted energies could not extricate +him.[5] + +[5] _Cope: "The Vertebrata of the Cretaceous Formations of the West," p. +50, being the "Report of the United States Geological Survey of the +Territories," Vol. II._ + +Like the "Fossil man" the sea-serpent flourishes perennially in the +newspapers and, despite the fact that he is now mainly regarded as a +joke, there have been many attempts to habilitate this mythical monster +and place him on a foundation of firm fact. The most earnest of these +was that of M. Oudemans, who expressed his belief in the existence of +some rare and huge seal-like creature whose occasional appearance in +southern waters gave rise to the best authenticated reports of the +sea-serpent. Among other possibilities it has been suggested that some +animal believed to be extinct had really lived over to the present day. +Now there are a few waifs, spared from the wrecks of ancient faunas, +stranded on the shores of the present, such as the Australian Ceratodus +and the Gar Pikes of North America, and these and all other creatures +that could be mustered in were used as proofs to sustain this theory. +If, it was said, these animals have been spared, why not others? If a +fish of such ancient lineage as the Gar Pike is so common as to be a +nuisance, why may there not be a few Plesiosaurs or a Mosasaur somewhere +in the depths of the ocean? The argument was a good one, the more that +we may "suppose" almost anything, but it must be said that no trace of +any of these creatures has so far been found outside of the strata in +which they have long been known to occur, and all the probabilities are +opposed to this theory. Still, if some of these creatures _had_ been +spared, they might well have passed for sea-serpents, even though +Zeuglodon, the one most like a serpent in form, was the one most +remotely related to snakes. + +Zeuglodon, the yoke-tooth, so named from the shape of its great cutting +teeth, was indeed a strange animal, and if we wonder at the Greenland +Whale, whose head is one-third its total length, we may equally wonder +at Zeuglodon, with four feet of head, ten feet of body, and forty feet +of tail. No one, seeing the bones of the trunk and tail for the first +time, would suspect that they belonged to the same animal, for while the +vertebrae of the body are of moderate size, those of the tail are, for +the bulk of creature, the longest known, measuring from fifteen to +eighteen inches in length, and weighing in a fossil condition fifty to +sixty pounds. In life, the animal was from fifty to seventy feet in +length, and not more than six or eight feet through the deepest part of +the body, while the tail was much less; the head was small and pointed, +the jaws well armed with grasping and cutting teeth, and just back of +the head was a pair of short paddles, not unlike those of a fur seal. It +is curious to speculate on the habits of a creature in which the tail +so obviously wagged the dog and whose articulations all point to great +freedom of movement up and down. This may mean that it was an active +diver, descending to great depths to prey upon squid, as the Sperm-Whale +does to-day, while it seems quite certain that it must have reared at +least a third of its great length out of water to take a comprehensive +view of its surroundings. And if size is any indication of power, the +great tail, which obviously ended in flukes like those of a whale, must +have been capable of propelling the beast at a speed of twenty or thirty +miles an hour. Something of the kind must have been needed in order that +the small head might provide food enough for the great tail, and it has +been suggested that inability to do this was the reason why Zeuglodon +became extinct. On the other hand, it has been ingeniously argued that +the huge tail served to store up fat when food was plenty, which was +drawn upon when food became scarce. The fur seals do something similar +to this, for the males come on shore in May rolling in blubber, and +depart in September lean and hungry after a three months' fast. + +Zeuglodons must have been very numerous in the old Gulf of Mexico, for +bones are found abundantly through portions of our Southern States; it +was also an inhabitant of the old seas of southern Europe, but, as we +shall see, it gave place to the great fossil shark, and this in turn +passed out of existence. Still, common though its bones may be, stories +of their use for making stone walls--and these stories are still in +circulation--resolve themselves on close scrutiny into the occasional +use of a big vertebra to support the corner of a corn-crib. + +The scientific name of Zeuglodon is _Basilosaurus cetoides_, the +whale-like king lizard--the first of these names, _Basilosaurus_, having +been given to it by the original describer, Dr. Harlan, who supposed the +animal to have been a reptile. Now it is a primary rule of nomenclature +that the first name given to an animal must stick and may not be +changed, even by the act of a zooelogical congress, so Zeuglodon must, so +far as its name is concerned, masquerade as a reptile for the rest of +its paleontological life. This, however, really matters very little, +because scientific names are simply verbal handles by which we may grasp +animals to describe them, and Dr. Le Conte, to show how little there may +be in a name, called a beetle Gyascutus. Owen's name of Zeuglodon, +although not tenable as a scientific name, is too good to be wasted, and +being readily remembered and easily pronounced may be used as a popular +name. + +[Illustration: Fig. 11.--Koch's Hydrarchus, Composed of Portions of the +Skeleton of Several Zeuglodons.] + +One might think that a creature sixty or seventy feet long was amply +long enough, but Dr. Albert Koch thought otherwise, and did with +Zeuglodon as, later on, he did with the Mastodon, combining the vertebrae +of several individuals until he had a monster 114 feet long! This he +exhibited in Europe under the name of Hydrarchus, or water king, finally +disposing of the composite creature to the Museum of Dresden, where it +was promptly reduced to its proper dimensions. The natural make-up of +Zeuglodon is sufficiently composite without any aid from man, for the +head and paddles are not unlike those of a seal, the ribs are like those +of a manatee, and the shoulder blades are precisely like those of a +whale, while the vertebrae are different from those of any other animal, +even its own cousin and lesser contemporary Dorudon. There were also +tiny hind legs tucked away beneath skin, but these, as well as many +other parts of the animal's structure were unknown, until Mr. Charles +Schuchert collected a series of specimens for the National Museum, from +which it was possible to restore the entire skeleton. Owing to a rather +curious circumstance the first attempt at a restoration was at fault; +among the bones originally obtained by Mr. Schuchert there were none +from the last half of the tail, an old gully having cut off the hinder +portion of the backbone and destroyed the vertebrae. Not far away, +however, was a big lump of stone containing several vertebrae of just the +right size, and these were used as models to complete the papier-mache +skeleton shown at Atlanta, in 1894. But a year after Mr. Schuchert +collected a series of vertebrae, beginning with the tip of the tail, and +these showed conclusively that the first lot of tail vertebrae belonged +to a creature still undescribed and one probably more like a whale than +Zeuglodon himself, whose exact relationships are a little uncertain, as +may be imagined from what was said of its structure. Mixed with the +bones of Zeuglodon was the shell of a turtle, nearly three feet long, +and part of the backbone of a great water-snake that must have been +twenty-five feet long, both previously quite unknown. One more curious +thing about Zeuglodon bones remains to be told, and then we are done +with him; ordinarily a fossil bone will break indifferently in any +direction, but the bones of Zeuglodon are built, like an onion, of +concentric layers, and these have a great tendency to peel off during +the preparation of a specimen. + + * * * * * + +And now, as the wheels of time and change rolled slowly on, sharks again +came uppermost, and the warmer Eocene and Miocene oceans appear to have +fairly teemed with these sea wolves. There were small sharks with +slender teeth for catching little fishes, there were larger sharks with +saw-like teeth for cutting slices out of larger fishes, and there were +sharks that might almost have swallowed the biggest fish of to-day +whole, sharks of a size the waters had never before contained, and +fortunately do not contain now. We know these monsters mostly by their +teeth, for their skeletons were cartilaginous, and this absence of their +remains is probably the reason why these creatures are passed by while +the adjectives huge, immense, enormous are lavished on the Mosasaurs and +Plesiosaurs--animals that the great-toothed shark, _Carcharodon +megalodon_, might well have eaten at a meal. For the gaping jaws of one +of these sharks, with its hundreds of gleaming teeth must, at a moderate +estimate, have measured not less than six feet across. + +The great White Shark, the man-eater, so often found in story books, so +rarely met with in real life, attains a length of thirty feet, and a man +just makes him a good, satisfactory lunch. Now a tooth of this shark is +an inch and a quarter long, while a tooth of the huge _Megalodon_ is +commonly three, often four, and not infrequently five inches long. +Applying the rule of three to such a tooth as this would give a shark +120 feet long, bigger than most whales, to whom a man would be but a +mouthful, just enough to whet his sharkship's appetite. Even granting +that the rule of three unduly magnifies the dimensions of the brute, and +making an ample reduction, there would still remain a fish between +seventy-five and one hundred feet long, quite large enough to satisfy +the most ambitious of _tuna_ fishers, and to have made bathing in the +Miocene ocean unpopular. Contemporary with the great-toothed shark was +another and closely related species that originated with him in Eocene +times, and these two may possibly have had something to do with the +extinction of Zeuglodon. This species is distinguished by having on +either side of the base of the great triangular cutting teeth a little +projection or cusp, like the "ear" on a jar, so that this species has +been named _auriculatus_, or eared. The edges of the teeth are also more +saw-like than in those of its greater relative, and as the species must +have attained a length of fifty or sixty feet it may, with its better +armature, have been quite as formidable. And, as perhaps the readers of +these pages may know, the supply of teeth never ran short. Back of each +tooth, one behind another arranged in serried ranks, lay a reserve of +six or seven smaller, but growing teeth, and whenever a tooth of the +front row was lost, the tooth immediately behind it took its place, and +like a well-trained soldier kept the front line unbroken. Thus the teeth +of sharks are continually developing at the back, and all the teeth are +steadily pushing forward, a very simple mechanical arrangement causing +the teeth to lie flat until they reach the front of the jaw and come +into use. + +Once fairly started in life, these huge sharks spread themselves +throughout the warm seas of the world, for there was none might stand +before them and say nay. They swarmed along our southern coast, from +Maryland to Texas; they swarmed everywhere that the water was +sufficiently warm, for their teeth occur in Tertiary strata in many +parts of the world, and the deep-sea dredges of the Challenger and +Albatross have brought up their teeth by scores. And then--they +perished, perished as utterly as did the hosts of Sennacherib. Why? We +do not know. Did they devour everything large enough to be eaten +throughout their habitat, and then fall to eating one another? Again, we +do not know. But perish they did, while the smaller white shark, which +came into being at the same time, still lives, as if to emphasize the +fact that it is best not to overdo things, and that in the long run the +victory is not _always_ to the largest. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_The finest Mosasaur skeleton ever discovered, an almost complete +skeleton of Tylosaurus dyspelor, 29 feet in length, may be seen at the +head of the staircase leading to the Hall of Paleontology, in the +American Museum of Natural History, New York. Another good specimen may +be seen in the Yale University Museum, which probably has the largest +collection of Mosasaurs in existence. Another fine collection is in the +Museum of the State University of Kansas, at Lawrence._ + +_The best Zeuglodon, the first to show the vestigial hind legs and to +make clear other portions of the structure, is in the United States +National Museum._ + +_The great sharks are known in this country by their teeth only, and, as +these are common in the phosphate beds, specimens may be seen in +almost any collection. In the United States National Museum, the jaws of +a twelve-foot blue shark are shown for comparison. The largest tooth in +that collection is 5-3/4 inches high and 5 inches across the base. It +takes five teeth of the blue shark to fill the same number of inches._ + +_The Mosasaurs are described in detail by Professor S. W. Williston, in +Vol. IV. of the "University Geological Survey of Kansas." There is a +technical--and, consequently, uninteresting--account of Zeuglodon in +Vol. XXIII. of the "Proceedings of the United States National Museum," +page 327._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 12.--A Tooth of Zeuglodon, one of the "Yoke Teeth," +from which it derives the name.] + + + + +V + +BIRDS OF OLD + + "_With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, + And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies._" + + +When we come to discuss the topic of the earliest bird--not the one in +the proverb--our choice of subjects is indeed limited, being restricted +to the famous and oft-described Archaeopteryx from the quarries of +Solenhofen, which at present forms the starting-point in the history of +the feathered race. Bird-like, or at least feathered, creatures, must +have existed before this, as it is improbable that feathers and flight +were acquired at one bound, and this lends probability to the view that +at least some of the tracks in the Connecticut Valley are really the +footprints of birds. Not birds as we now know them, but still creatures +wearing feathers, these being the distinctive badge and livery of the +order. For we may well speak of the feathered race, the exclusive +prerogative of the bird being not flight but feathers; no bird is +without them, no other creature wears them, so that birds may be exactly +defined in two words, feathered animals. Reptiles, and even mammals, may +go quite naked or cover themselves with a defensive armor of bony plates +or horny scales; but under the blaze of the tropical sun or in the chill +waters of arctic seas birds wear feathers only, although in the penguins +the feathers have become so changed that their identity is almost lost. + +[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Archaeopteryx, the Earliest Known Bird. _From +the specimen in the Berlin Museum._] + +So far as flight goes, there is one entire order of mammals, whose +members, the bats, are quite as much at home in the air as the birds +themselves, and in bygone days the empire of the air belonged to the +pterodactyls; even frogs and fishes have tried to fly, and some of the +latter have nearly succeeded in the attempt. As for wings, it may be +said that they are made on very different patterns in such animals as +the pterodactyl, bat, and bird, and that while the end to be achieved is +the same, it is reached by very different methods. The wing membrane of +a bat is spread between his out-stretched fingers, the thumb alone +being left free, while in the pterodactyl the thumb is wanting and the +membrane supported only by what in us is the little finger, a term that +is a decided misnomer in the case of the pterodactyl. In birds the +fingers have lost their individuality, and are modified for the +attachment or support of the wing feathers, but in Archaeopteryx the hand +had not reached this stage, for the fingers were partly free and tipped +with claws. + +[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Nature's Four Methods of Making a Wing. Bat, +Pterodactyl, Archaeopteryx, and Modern Bird.] + +We get some side lights on the structure of primitive birds by studying +the young and the earlier stages of living species, for in a very +general way it may be said that the development of the individual is a +sort of rough sketch or hasty outline of the development of the class of +which it is a member; thus the transitory stages through which the chick +passes before hatching give us some idea of the structure of the adult +birds or bird-like creatures of long ago. Now, in embryonic birds the +wing ends in a sort of paw and the fingers are separate, quite different +from what they become a little later on, and not unlike their condition +in Archaeopteryx, and even more like what is found in the wing of an +ostrich. + +Then, too, there are a few birds still left, such as the ostrich, that +have not kept pace with the others, and are a trifle more like reptiles +than the vast majority of their relatives, and these help a little in +explaining the structure of early birds. Among these is a queer bird +with a queer name, Hoactzin, found in South America, which when young +uses its little wings much like legs, just as we may suppose was done by +birds of old, to climb about the branches. Mr. Quelch, who has studied +these curious birds in their native wilds of British Guiana, tells us +that soon after hatching, the nestlings begin to crawl about by means of +their legs and wings, the well-developed claws on the thumb and finger +being constantly in use for hooking to surrounding objects. If they are +drawn from the nest by means of their legs, they hold on firmly to the +twigs, both with their bill and wings; and if the nest be upset they +hold on to all objects with which they come in contact by bill, feet, +and wings, making considerable use of the bill, with the help of the +clawed wings, to raise themselves to a higher level. + +[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Young Hoactzins.] + +Thus, by putting these various facts together we obtain some pretty good +ideas regarding the appearance and habits of the first birds. The +immediate ancestors of birds, their exact point of departure from other +vertebrates, is yet to be discovered; at one time it was considered that +they were the direct descendants of Dinosaurs, or that at least both +were derived from the same parent forms, and while that view was almost +abandoned, it is again being brought forward with much to support it. It +has also been thought that birds and those flying reptiles, the +pterodactyls, have had a common ancestry, and the possibility of this is +still entertained. Be that as it may, it is safe to consider that back +in the past, earlier than the Jurassic, were creatures neither bird nor +reptile, but possessing rudimentary feathers and having the promise of a +wing in the structure of their fore legs, and some time one of these +animals may come to light; until then Archaeopteryx remains the earliest +known bird. + +In the Jurassic, then, when the Dinosaurs were the lords of the earth +and small mammals just beginning to appear, we come upon traces of +full-fledged birds. The first intimation of their presence was the +imprint of a single feather found in that ancient treasure-house, the +Solenhofen quarries; but as Hercules was revealed by his foot, so the +bird was made evident by the feather whose discovery was announced +August 15, 1861. And a little later, in September of the same year, the +bird itself turned up, and in 1877 a second specimen was found, the two +representing two species, if not two distinct genera. These were very +different from any birds now living--so different, indeed, and bearing +such evident traces of their reptilian ancestry, that it is necessary to +place them apart from other animals in a separate division of the class +birds. + +Archaeopteryx was considerably smaller than a crow, with a stout little +head armed with sharp teeth (as scarce as hens' teeth was no joke in +that distant period), while as he fluttered through the air he trailed +after him a tail longer than his body, beset with feathers on either +side. Everyone knows that nowadays the feathers of a bird's tail are +arranged like the sticks of a fan, and that the tail opens and shuts +like a fan. But in Archaeopteryx the feathers were arranged in pairs, a +feather on each side of every joint of the tail, so that on a small +scale the tail was something like that of a kite; and because of this +long, lizard-like tail this bird and his immediate kith and kin are +placed in a group dubbed Saururae, or lizard tailed. + +Because impressions of feathers are not found all around these specimens +some have thought that they were confined to certain portions of the +body--the wings, tail, and thighs--the other parts being naked. There +seems, however, no good reason to suppose that such was the case, for it +is extremely improbable that such perfect and important feathers as +those of the wings and tail should alone have been developed, while +there are many reasons why the feathers of the body might have been lost +before the bird was covered by mud, or why their impressions do not +show. + +It was a considerable time after the finding of the first specimen that +the presence of teeth in the jaws was discovered, partly because the +British Museum specimen was imperfect,[6] and partly because no one +suspected that birds had ever possessed teeth, and so no one ever looked +for them. When, in 1877, a more complete example was found, the +existence of teeth was unmistakably shown; but in the meantime, in +February, 1873, Professor Marsh had announced the presence of teeth in +Hesperornis, and so to him belongs the credit of being the discoverer of +birds with teeth. + +[6] _The skull was lacking, and a part of the upper jaw lying to one +side was thought to belong to a fish._ + +The next birds that we know are from our own country, and although +separated by an interval of thousands of years from the Jurassic +Archaeopteryx, time enough for the members of one group to have quite +lost their wings, they still retain teeth, and in this respect the most +bird-like of them is quite unlike any modern bird. These come from the +chalk beds of western Kansas, and the first specimens were obtained by +Professor Marsh in his expeditions of 1870 and 1871, but not until a few +years later, after the material had been cleaned and was being studied, +was it ascertained that these birds were armed with teeth. The smaller +of these birds, which was apparently not unlike a small gull in general +appearance, was, saving its teeth, so thoroughly a bird that it may be +passed by without further notice, but the larger was remarkable in many +ways. Hesperornis, the western bird, was a great diver, in some ways the +greatest of the divers, for it stood higher than the king penguin, +though more slender and graceful in general build, looking somewhat like +an overgrown, absolutely wingless loon. + +The penguins, as everyone knows, swim with their front limbs--we can't +call them wings--which, though containing all the bones of a wing, have +become transformed into powerful paddles; Hesperornis, on the other +hand, swam altogether with its legs--swam so well with them, indeed, +that through disuse the wings dwindled away and vanished, save one bone. +This, however, is not stating the theory quite correctly; of course the +matter cannot be actually proved. Hesperornis was a large bird, upwards +of five feet in length, and if its ancestors were equally bulky their +wings were quite too large to be used in swimming under water, as are +those of such short-winged forms as the Auks which fly under the water +quite as much as they fly over it. Hence the wings were closely folded +upon the body so as to offer the least possible resistance, and being +disused, they and their muscles dwindled, while the bones and muscles +of the legs increased by constant use. By the time the wings were small +enough to be used in so dense a medium as water the muscles had become +too feeble to move them, and so degeneration proceeded until but one +bone remained, a mere vestige of the wing that had been. The penguins +retain their great breast muscles, and so did the Great Auk, because +their wings are used in swimming, since it requires even more strength +to move a small wing in water than it does to move a large wing in the +thinner air. As for our domesticated fowls--the turkeys, chickens, and +ducks--there has not been sufficient lapse of time for their muscles to +dwindle, and besides artificial selection, the breeding of fowls for +food has kept up the mere size of the muscles, although these lack the +strength to be found in those of wild birds. + +As a swimming bird, one that swims with its legs and not with its wings, +Hesperornis has probably never been equalled, for the size and +appearance of the bones indicate great power, while the bones of the +foot were so joined to those of the leg as to turn edgewise as the foot +was brought forward and thus to offer the least possible resistance to +the water. It is a remarkable fact that the leg bones of Hesperornis are +hollow, remarkable because as a rule the bones of aquatic animals are +more or less solid, their weight being supported by the water; but those +of the great diver were almost as light as if it had dwelt upon the dry +land. That it did not dwell there is conclusively shown by its build, +and above all by its feet, for the foot of a running bird is modified in +quite another way. + +The bird was probably covered with smooth, soft feathers, something like +those of an Apteryx; this we know because Professor Williston found a +specimen showing the impression of the skin of the lower part of the leg +as well as of the feathers that covered the "thigh" and head. While such +a covering seems rather inadequate for a bird of such exclusively +aquatic habits as Hesperornis must have been, there seems no getting +away from the facts in the case in the shape of Professor Williston's +specimen, and we have in the Snake Bird, one of the most aquatic of +recent birds, an instance of similarly poor covering. As all know who +have seen this bird at home, its feathers shed the water very +imperfectly, and after long-continued submersion become saturated, a +fact which partly accounts for the habit the bird has of hanging itself +out to dry. + +[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Hesperornis, the Great Toothed Diver. _From a +drawing by J. M. Gleeson._] + +The restoration which Mr. Gleeson has drawn differs radically from any +yet made, and is the result of a careful study of the specimen belonging +to the United States National Museum. No one can appreciate the +peculiarities of Hesperornis and its remarkable departures from other +swimming birds who has not seen the skeleton mounted in a swimming +attitude. The great length of the legs, their position at the middle of +the body, the narrowness of the body back of the hip joint, and the +disproportionate length of the outer toe are all brought out in a manner +which a picture of the bird squatting upon its haunches fails utterly to +show. As for the tail, it is evident from the size and breadth of the +bones that something of the kind was present; it is also evident that it +was not like that of an ordinary bird, and so it has been drawn with +just a suggestion of Archaeopteryx about it. + +The most extraordinary thing about Hesperornis, however, is the position +of the legs relative to the body, and this is something that was not +even suspected until the skeleton was mounted in a swimming attitude. As +anyone knows who has watched a duck swim, the usual place for the feet +and legs is beneath and in a line with the body. But in our great +extinct diver the articulations of the leg bones are such that this is +impossible, and the feet and lower joint of the legs (called the tarsus) +must have stood out nearly at right angles to the body, like a pair of +oars. This is so peculiar and anomalous an attitude for a bird's legs +that, although apparently indicated by the shape of the bones, it was at +first thought to be due to the crushing and consequent distortion to +which the bones had been subjected, and an endeavor was made to place +the legs in the ordinary position, even though this was done at the +expense of some little dislocation of the joints. But when the mounting +of the skeleton had advanced further it became more evident that +Hesperornis was not an ordinary bird, and that he could not have swum in +the usual manner, since this would have brought his great knee-caps up +into his body, which would have been uncomfortable. And so, at the cost +of some little time and trouble,[7] the mountings were so changed that +the legs stood out at the sides of the body, as shown in the picture. + +[7] _The mounting of fossil bones is quite a different matter from the +wiring of an ordinary skeleton, since the bones are not only so hard +that they cannot be bored and wired like those of a recent animal, but +they are so brittle and heavy that often they will not sustain their own +weight. Hence such bones must be supported from the outside, and to do +this so that the mountings will be strong enough to support their +weight, allow the bones to be removed for study, and yet be +inconspicuous, is a difficult task._ + +A final word remains to be said about toothed birds, which is, that the +visitor who looks upon one for the first time will probably be +disappointed. The teeth are so loosely implanted in the jaw that most of +them fall out shortly after death, while the few that remain are so +small as not to attract observation. + +By the time the Eocene Period was reached, even before that, birds had +become pretty much what we now see them, and very little change has +taken place in them since that time; they seem to have become so exactly +adapted to the conditions of existence that no further modification has +taken place. This may be expressed in another way, by saying that while +the Mammals of the Eocene have no near relatives among those now living, +entire large groups having passed completely out of existence, the few +birds that we know might, so far as their appearance and affinities go, +have been killed yesterday. + +Were we to judge of the former abundance of birds by the number we find +in a fossil state, we should conclude that in the early days of the +world they were remarkably scarce, for bird bones are among the rarest +of fossils. But from the high degree of development evidenced by the few +examples that have come to light, and the fact that these represent +various and quite distinct species,[8] we are led to conclude that +birds were abundant enough, but that we simply do not find them. + +[8] _But three birds, besides a stray feather or two, are so far known +from the Eocene of North America. One of these is a fowl not very unlike +some of the small curassows of South America; another is a little bird, +supposed to be related to the sparrows, while the third is a large bird +of uncertain relationships._ + +Several eggs, too--or, rather, casts of eggs--have lately been found in +the Cretaceous and Miocene strata of the West; and, as eggs and birds +are usually associated, we are liable at any time to come upon the bones +of the birds that laid them. + +To the writer's mind no thoroughly satisfactory explanation has been +given for the scarcity of bird remains; but the reason commonly advanced +is that, owing to their lightness, dead birds float for a much longer +time than other animals, and hence are more exposed to the ravages of +the weather and the attacks of carrion-feeding animals. It has also been +said that the power of flight enabled birds to escape calamities that +caused the death of contemporary animals; but all birds do not fly; and +birds do fall victims to storms, cold, and starvation, and even perish +of pestilence, like the Cormorants of Bering Island, whose ranks have +twice been decimated by disease. + +It is true that where carnivorous animals abound, dead birds do +disappear quickly; and my friend Dr. Stejneger tells me that, while +hundreds of dead sea-fowl are cast on the shores of the Commander +Islands, it is a rare thing to find one after daylight, as the bodies +are devoured by the Arctic foxes that prowl about the shores at night. +But, again, as in the Miocene of Southern France and in the Pliocene of +Oregon, remains of birds are fairly numerous, showing that, under proper +conditions, their bones are preserved for future reference, so that we +may hope some day to come upon specimens that will enable us to round +out the history of bird life in the past. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_The first discovered specimen of Archaeopteryx, Archaeopteryx macrura, is +in the British Museum, the second more complete example is in the Royal +Museum of Natural History, Berlin. The largest collection of toothed +birds, including the types of Hesperornis, Ichthyornis and others, is in +the Yale University Museum, at New Haven. The United States National +Museum at Washington has a fine mounted skeleton of Hesperornis, and the +State University of Kansas, at Lawrence, has the example showing the +impressions of feathers._ + +_For scientific descriptions of these birds the reader is referred to +Owen's paper "On the Archaeopteryx of von Meyer, with a Description of +the Fossil Remains, etc.," in the "Transactions of the Philosophical +Society of London for 1863," page 33, and "Odontornithes, a Monograph of +the Extinct Toothed Birds of North America," by O. C. Marsh. Much +popular and scientific information concerning the early birds is to be +found in Newton's "Dictionary of Birds," and "The Story of Bird Life," +by W. P. Pycraft; the "Structure and Life of Birds," by F. W. Headley; +"The Story of the Birds," by J. Newton Baskett._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Archaeopteryx as Restored by Mr. Pycraft.] + + + + +VI + +THE DINOSAURS + + "_Shapes of all sorts and sizes, great and small._" + + +A few million years ago, geologists and physicists do not agree upon the +exact number, although both agree upon the millions, when the Rocky +Mountains were not yet born and the now bare and arid western plains a +land of lakes, rivers, and luxuriant vegetation, the region was +inhabited by a race of strange and mighty reptiles upon whom science has +bestowed the appropriate name of Dinosaurs, or terrible lizards. + +Our acquaintance with the Dinosaurs is comparatively recent, dating from +the early part of the nineteenth century, and in America, at least, the +date may be set at 1818, when the first Dinosaur remains were found in +the Valley of the Connecticut, although they naturally were not +recognized as such, nor had the term been devised. The first Dinosaur +to be formally recognized as representing quite a new order of reptiles +was the carnivorous Megalosaur, found near Oxford, England, in 1824. + +[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Thespesius. A Common Herbivorous Dinosaur of +the Cretaceous. _From a drawing by Charles R. Knight._] + +For a long time our knowledge of Dinosaurs was very imperfect and +literally fragmentary, depending mostly upon scattered teeth, isolated +vertebrae, or fragments of bone picked up on the surface or casually +encountered in some mine or quarry. Now, however, thanks mainly to the +labors of American palaeontologists, thanks also to the rich deposits of +fossils in our Western States, we have an extensive knowledge of the +Dinosaurs, of their size, structure, habits, and general appearance. + +There are to-day no animals living that are closely related to them; +none have lived for a long period of time, for the Dinosaurs came to an +end in the Cretaceous, and it can only be said that the crocodiles, on +the one hand, and the ostriches, on the other, are the nearest existing +relatives of these great reptiles. + +For, though so different in outward appearance, birds and reptiles are +structurally quite closely allied, and the creeping snake and the bird +on which it preys are relatives, although any intimate relationship +between them is of the serpent's making, and is strongly objected to by +the bird. + +But if we compare the skeleton of a Dinosaur with that of an ostrich--a +young one is preferable--and with those of the earlier birds, we shall +find that many of the barriers now existing between reptiles and birds +are broken down, and that they have many points in common. In fact, save +in the matter of clothes, wherein birds differ from all other animals, +the two great groups are not so very far apart. + +The Dinosaurs were by no means confined to North America, although the +western United States seem to have been their headquarters, but ranged +pretty much over the world, for their remains have been found in every +continent, even in far-off New Zealand. + +In point of time they ranged from the Trias to the Upper Cretaceous, +their golden age, marking the culminating point of reptilian life, being +in the Jurassic, when huge forms stalked by the sea-shore, browsed amid +the swamps, or disported themselves along the reedy margins of lakes +and rivers. + +They had their day, a day of many thousand years, and then passed away, +giving place to the superior race of mammals which was just springing +into being when the huge Dinosaurs were in the heyday of their +existence. + +And it does seem as if in the dim and distant past, as in the present, +brains were a potent factor in the struggle for supremacy; for, though +these reptiles were giants in size, dominating the earth through mere +brute force, they were dwarfs in intellect. + +The smallest human brain that is thought to be compatible with life +itself weighs a little over ten ounces, the smallest that can exist with +reasoning powers is two pounds; this in a creature weighing from 120 to +150 pounds. + +What do we find among Dinosaurs? Thespesius, or Claosaurus, which may +have walked where Baltimore now stands, was twenty-five feet in length +and stood a dozen feet high in his bare feet, had a brain smaller than a +man's clenched fist, weighing less than one pound. + +Brontosaurus, in some respects the biggest brute that ever walked, was +but little better off, and Triceratops, and his relatives, creatures +having twice the bulk of an elephant, weighing probably over ten tons, +possessed a brain weighing not over two pounds! + +How much of what we term intelligence could such a creature +possess--what was the extent of its reasoning powers? Judging from our +own standpoint and the small amount of intellect apparent in some humans +with much larger brains, these big reptiles must have known just about +enough to have eaten when they were hungry, anything more was +superfluous. + +However, intelligence is one thing, life another, and the spinal cord, +with its supply of nerve-substance, doubtless looked after the mere +mechanical functions of life; and while even the spinal cord is in many +cases quite small, in some places, particularly in the sacral region, it +is subject to considerable enlargement. This is notably true of +Stegosaurus, where the sacral enlargement is twenty times the bulk of +the puny brain--a fact noted by Professor Marsh, and seized upon by the +newspapers, which announced that he had discovered a Dinosaur with a +brain in its pelvis. + +In their great variety of size and shape the Dinosaurs form an +interesting parallel with the Marsupials of Australia. For just as these +are, as it were, an epitome of the class of mammals, mimicking the +herbivores, carnivores, rodents and even monkeys, so there are +carnivorous and herbivorous Dinosaurs--Dinosaurs that dwelt on land and +others that habitually resided in the water, those that walked upright +and those that crawled about on all fours; and, while there are no hints +that any possessed the power of flight, some members of the group are +very bird-like in form and structure, so much so that it has been +thought that the two may have had a common ancestry. + +The smallest of the Dinosaurs whose acquaintance we have made were +little larger than chickens; the largest claim the distinction of being +the largest known quadrupeds that have walked the face of the earth, the +giants not only of their day, but of all time, before whose huge frames +the bones of the Mammoth, that familiar byword for all things great, +seem slight. + +For Brontosaurus, the Thunder Lizard, beneath whose mighty tread the +earth shook, and his kindred were from 40 to 60 feet long and 10 to 14 +feet high, their thigh bones measuring 5 to 6 feet in length, being the +largest single bones known to us, while some of the vertebrae were 4-1/2 +feet high, exceeding in dimensions those of a whale. + +[Illustration: Fig. 19--A Hind Leg of the Great Brontosaurus, the +Largest of the Dinosaurs.] + +The group to which Brontosaurus belongs, including Diplodocus and +Morosaurus, is distinguished by a large, though rather short, body, +very long neck and tail, and, for the size of the animal, a very small +head. In fact, the head was so small and, in the case of Diplodocus, so +poorly provided with teeth that it must have been quite a task, or a +long-continued pleasure, according to the state of its digestive +apparatus, for the animal to have eaten its daily meal. + +[Illustration: Fig. 20.--A Single Vertebra of Brontosaurus.] + +An elephant weighing 5 tons eats 100 pounds of hay and 25 pounds of +grain for his day's ration; but, as this food is in a comparatively +concentrated form, it would require at least twice this weight of green +fodder. + +It is a difficult matter to estimate the weight of a live Diplodocus or +a Brontosaurus, but it is pretty safe to say that it would not be far +from 20 tons, and that one would devour at the very least something over +700 pounds of leaves or twigs or plants each day--more, if the animal +felt really hungry. + +But here we must, even if reluctantly, curb our imagination a little and +consider another point: the cold-blooded, sluggish reptiles, as we know +them to-day, do not waste their energies in rapid movements, or in +keeping the temperature of their bodies above that of the air, and so by +no means require the amount of food needed by more active, warm-blooded +animals. Alligators, turtles, and snakes will go for weeks, even months, +without food, and while this applies more particularly to those that +dwell in temperate climes and during their winter hibernation +practically suspend the functions of digestion and respiration, it is +more or less true of all reptiles. And as there is little reason for +supposing that reptiles behaved in the past any differently from what +they do in the present, these great Dinosaurs may, after all, not have +been gifted with such ravenous appetites as one might fancy. Still, it +is dangerous to lay down any hard and fast laws concerning animals, and +he who writes about them is continually obliged to qualify his +remarks--in sporting parlance, to hedge a little, and in the present +instance there is some reason, based on the arrangement of vertebrae and +ribs, to suppose that the lungs of Dinosaurs were somewhat like those of +birds, and that, as a corollary, their blood may have been better +aerated and warmer than that of living reptiles. But, to return to the +question of food. + +From the peculiar character of the articulations of the limb-bones, it +is inferred that these animals were largely aquatic in their habits, and +fed on some abundant species of water plants. One can readily see the +advantage of the long neck in browsing off the vegetation on the bottom +of shallow lakes, while the animal was submerged, or in rearing the head +aloft to scan the surrounding shores for the approach of an enemy. Or, +with the tail as a counterpoise, the entire body could be reared out of +water and the head be raised some thirty feet in the air. + +Triceratops, he of the three-horned face, had a remarkable skull which +projected backward over the neck, like a fireman's helmet, or a +sunbonnet worn hind side before, while over each eye was a massive horn +directed forward, a third, but much smaller horn being sometimes present +on the nose. + +The little "Horned Toad," which isn't a toad at all, is the nearest +suggestion we have to-day of Triceratops; but, could he realize the +ambition of the frog in the fable and swell himself to the dimensions of +an ox, he would even then be but a pigmy compared with his ancient and +distant relative. + +So far as mere appearance goes he would compare very well, for while so +much is said about the strange appearance of the Dinosaurs, it is to be +borne in mind that their peculiarities are enhanced by their size, and +that there are many lizards of to-day that lack only stature to be even +more _bizarre_; and, for example, were the Australian Moloch but big +enough, he could give even Stegosaurus "points" in more ways than one. + +Standing before the skull of Triceratops, looking him squarely in the +face, one notices in front of each eye a thick guard of projecting bone, +and while this must have interfered with vision directly ahead it must +have also furnished protection for the eye. So long as Triceratops faced +an adversary he must have been practically invulnerable, but as he was +the largest animal of his time, upward of twenty-five feet in length, it +is probable that his combats were mainly with those of his own kind and +the subject of dispute some fair female upon whom two rival suitors had +cast covetous eyes. What a sight it would have been to have seen two of +these big brutes in mortal combat as they charged upon each other with +all the impetus to be derived from ten tons of infuriate flesh! We may +picture to ourselves horn clashing upon horn, or glancing from each bony +shield until some skilful stroke or unlucky slip placed one combatant at +the mercy of the other, and he went down before the blows of his +adversary "as falls on Mount Alvernus a thunder-smitten oak." + +[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Moloch. A Modern Lizard that Surpasses the +Stegosaurs in All but Size. _From a drawing by J. M. Gleeson._] + +A pair of Triceratops horns in the National Museum bears witness to such +encounters, for one is broken midway between tip and base; and that it +was broken during life is evident from the fact that the stump is healed +and rounded over, while the size of the horns shows that their owner +reached a ripe old age. + +For, unlike man and the higher vertebrates, reptiles and fishes do not +have a maximum standard of size which is soon reached and rarely +exceeded, but continue to grow throughout life, so that the size of a +turtle, a crocodile, or a Dinosaur tells something of the duration of +its life. + +Before quitting Triceratops let us glance for a moment at its skeleton. +Now among other things a skeleton is the solution of a problem in +mechanics, and in Triceratops the head so dominates the rest of the +structure that one might almost imagine the skull was made first and the +body adjusted to it. The great head seems made not only for offence and +defence; the spreading frill serves for the attachment of muscles to +sustain the weight of the skull, while the work of the muscles is made +easier by the fact that the frill reaches so far back of the junction of +head with neck as to largely counterbalance the weight of the face and +jaws. When we restored the skull of this animal it was found that the +centre of gravity lay back of the eye. Several of the bones of the neck +are united in one mass to furnish a firm attachment for the muscles that +support and move the skull, but as the movements of the neck are already +restricted by the overhanging frill, this loss of motion is no +additional disadvantage. + +[Illustration: TRICERATOPS PRORSUS Marsh Fig. 22.--Skeleton of +Triceratops.] + +To support all this weight of skull and body requires very massive +legs, and as the fore legs are very short, this enables Triceratops to +browse comfortably from the ground by merely lowering the front of the +head. + +These forms we have been considering were the giants of the group, but a +commoner species, Thespesius, though less in bulk than those just +mentioned, was still of goodly proportions, for, as he stalked about, +the top of his head was twelve feet from the ground. + +Thespesius and his kin seem to have been comparatively abundant, for +they have a wide distribution, and many specimens, some almost perfect, +have been discovered in this country and abroad. No less than +twenty-nine Iguanodons, a European relative of Thespesius, were found in +one spot in mining for coal at Bernissart, Belgium. Here, during long +years of Cretaceous time, a river slowly cut its way through the +coal-bearing strata to a depth of 750 feet, a depth almost twice as +great as the deepest part of the gorge of Niagara, and then, this being +accomplished, began the work of filling up the valley it had excavated. + +It was then a sluggish stream with marshy borders, a stream subject to +frequent floods, when the water, turbid with mud and laden with sand, +overflowed its banks, leaving them, as the waters subsided, covered +thickly with mud. Here, amidst the luxuriant vegetation of a +semi-tropical climate, lived and died the Iguanodons, and here the pick +of the miner rescued them from their long entombment to form part of the +treasures of the museum at Brussels. + +Like other reptiles, living and extinct, Thespesius was continually +renewing his teeth, so that as fast as one tooth was worn out it was +replaced by another, a point wherein Thespesius had a decided advantage +over ourselves. On the other hand, as there was a reserve supply of +something like 400 teeth in the lower jaw alone, what an opportunity for +the toothache! + +And then we have a multitude of lesser Dinosaurs, including the active, +predatory species with sharp claws and double-edged teeth. Megalosaurus, +the first of the Dinosaurs to be really known, was one of these +carnivorous species, and from our West comes a near relative, +Ceratosaurus, the nose-horned lizard, a queer beast with tiny fore legs, +powerful, sharp-clawed hind feet, and well-armed jaws. A most formidable +foe he seems, the more that the hollow bones speak of active movements, +and Professor Cope pictured him, or a near relative, vigorously engaged +in combat with his fellows, or preying upon the huge but helpless +herbivores of the marshes, leaping, biting, and tearing his enemy to +pieces with tooth and claw. + +Professor Osborn, on the other hand, is inclined to consider him as a +reptilian hyena, feeding upon carrion, although one can but feel that +such an armament is not entirely in the interests of peace. + +Last, but by no means least, are the Stegosaurs, or plated lizards, for +not only were they beasts of goodly size, but they were among the most +singular of all known animals, singular even for Dinosaurs. They had +diminutive heads, small fore legs, long tails armed on either side near +the tip, with two pairs of large spines, while from these spines to the +neck ran series of large, but thin, and sharp-edged plates standing +on edge, so that their backs looked like the bottom of a boat provided +with a number of little centreboards. Just how these plates were +arranged is not decided beyond a peradventure, but while originally +figured as having them in a single series down the back it seems much +more probable that they formed parallel rows. + +[Illustration: Fig. 23.--The Horned Ceratosaurus. A Carnivorous +Dinosaur. _From a drawing by J. M. Gleeson._] + +The largest of these plates were two feet in height and length, and not +more than an inch thick, except at the base, where they were enlarged +and roughened to give a firm hold to the thick skin in which they were +imbedded. Be it remembered, too, that these plates and spines were +doubtless covered with horn, so that they were even longer in life than +as we now see them. The tail spines varied in length, according to the +species, from eight or nine inches to nearly three feet, and some of +them have a diameter of six inches at the base. They were swung by a +tail eight to ten feet long, and as a visitor was heard to remark, one +wouldn't like to be about such an animal in fly time. + +Such were some of the strange and mighty animals that once roamed this +continent from the valley of the Connecticut, where they literally left +their footprints on the sands of time, to the Rocky Mountains, where the +ancient lakes and rivers became cemeteries for the entombment of their +bones. + +The labor of the collector has gathered their fossil remains from many a +Western canyon, the skill of the preparator has removed them from their +stony sepulchres and the study of the anatomist has restored them as +they were in life. + + +_REFERENCES._ + +_Most of our large museums have on exhibition fine specimens of many +Dinosaurs, comprising skulls, limbs, and large portions of their +skeletons. The American Museum of Natural History, New York, has the +largest and finest display. The first actual skeleton of a Dinosaur to +be mounted in this country was the splendid Claosaurus at the Yale +University Museum, where other striking pieces are also to be seen. The +mounting of this Claosaurus, which is 29 feet long and 13 feet high, +took an entire year. The United States National Museum is +particularly rich in examples of the great, horned Triceratops, while +the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, has the best Diplodocus. The Field +Columbian Museum and the Universities of Wyoming and Colorado all have +good collections._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Stegosaurus. An Armored Dinosaur of the +Jurassic. _From a drawing by Charles R. Knight._] + +_The largest single bone of a Dinosaur is the thigh bone of a +Brontosaurus in the Field Columbian Museum, this measuring 6 feet 8 +inches in length. The height of a complete hind leg in the American +Museum of Natural History is 10 feet, while a single claw measures 6 by +9 inches. The skeleton of Triceratops restored in papier-mache for the +Pan-American Exposition measured 25 feet from tip of nose to end of tail +and was 10 feet 6 inches to the top of the backbone over the hips, this +being the highest point. The head in the United States National Museum +used as a model is 5 feet 6 inches long in a straight line and 4 feet 3 +inches across the frill. There is a skull in the Yale University Museum +even larger than this._ + +_Articles relating to Dinosaurs are mostly technical in their nature and +scattered through various scientific journals. The most accessible +probably is "The Dinosaurs of North America," by Professor O. C. Marsh, +published as part of the sixteenth annual report of the United States +Geological Survey. This contains many figures of the skulls, bones, and +entire skeletons of many Dinosaurs._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Skull of Ceratosaurus. _From a specimen in the +United States National Museum._] + + + + +VII + +READING THE RIDDLES OF THE ROCKS + + "_And the first Morning of Creation wrote + What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read._" + + +It is quite possible that the reader may wish to know something of the +manner in which the specimens described in these pages have been +gathered, how we acquire our knowledge of Brontosaurus, Claosaurus, or +any of the many other "sauruses," and how their restorations have been +made. + +There was a time, not so very long ago, when fossils were looked upon as +mere sports of Nature, and little attention paid to them; later their +true nature was recognized, though they were merely gathered haphazard +as occasion might offer. But now, and for many years past, the +fossil-bearing rocks of many parts of the world have been systematically +worked, and from the material thus obtained we have acquired a great +deal of information regarding the inhabitants of the ancient world. This +is particularly true of our own western country, where a vast amount of +collecting has been done, although very much remains to be done in the +matter of perfecting this knowledge, and hosts of new animals remain to +be discovered. For this information we are almost as much indebted to +the collector who has gathered the needed material, and the preparator +whose patience and skill have made it available for study, as to the +palaeontologist who has interpreted the meaning of the bones. + +To collect successfully demands not only a knowledge of the rocks in +which fossils occur and of the localities where they are best exposed to +view, but an eye quick to detect a piece of bone protruding from a rock +or lying amongst the shale, and, above all, the ability to work a +deposit to advantage after it has been found. The collector of living +animals hies to regions where there is plenty for bird and beast to eat +and drink, but the collector of extinct animals cares little for what is +on the surface of the earth; his great desire is to see as much as +possible of what may lie beneath. So the prospector in search of fossils +betakes himself to some region where the ceaseless warfare waged by +water against the dry land has seamed the face of the earth with +countless gullies and canyons, or carved it into slopes and bluffs in +which the edges of the bone-bearing strata are exposed to view, and +along these he skirts, ever on the look-out for some projecting bit of +bone. The country is an almost shadeless desert, burning hot by day, +uncomfortably cool at night. Water is scarce, and when it can be found, +often has little to commend it save wetness; but the collector is buoyed +up through all this with the hope that he may discover some creature new +to science that shall not only be bigger and uglier and stranger than +any heretofore found, but shall be the long-sought form needed for the +solution of some difficult problem in the history of the past. + +Now collecting is a lottery, differing from most lotteries, however, in +that while some of the returns may be pretty small, there are few +absolute blanks and some remarkably large prizes, and every collector +hopes that it may fall to his lot to win one of these, and is willing to +work long and arduously for the chance of obtaining it. + +It may give some idea of the chances to say that some years ago Dr. +Wortman spent almost an entire season in the field without success, and +then, at the eleventh hour, found the now famous skeleton of Phenacodus, +or that a party from Princeton actually camped within 100 yards of a +rich deposit of rare fossils and yet failed to discover it. + +Let us, however, suppose that the reconnaissance has been successful, +and that an outcrop of bone has been found, serving like a tombstone +carven with strange characters to indicate the burial-place of some +primeval monster. Possibly Nature long ago rifled the grave, washing +away much of the skeleton, and leaving little save the fragments visible +on the surface; on the other hand, these pieces may form part of a +complete skeleton, and there is no way to decide this important question +save by actual excavation. The manner of disinterment varies, but much +depends on whether the fossil lies in comparatively loose shale or is +imbedded in the solid rock, whether the strata are level or dip downward +into the hillside. If, unfortunately, this last is the case, it +necessitates a careful shoring up of the excavation with props of +cotton-wood or such boards as may have been brought along to box +specimens, or it may even be necessary to run a short tunnel in order to +get at some coveted bone. Should the specimen lie in shale, as is the +case with most of the large reptiles that have been collected, much of +that work may be done with pick and shovel; but if it is desirable or +necessary to work in firm rock, drills and hammers, wedges, even powder, +may be needed to rend from Nature her long-kept secrets. In any event, a +detailed plan is made of the excavation, and each piece of bone or +section of rock duly recorded therein by letter and number, so that +later on the relation of the parts to one another may be known, or the +various sections assembled in the work-room exactly as they lay in the +quarry. Bones which lie in loose rock are often, one might say usually, +more or less broken, and when a bone three, four, or even six feet +long, weighing anywhere from 100 to 1,000 pounds, has been shattered to +fragments the problem of removing it is no easy one. But here the skill +of the collector comes into play to treat the fossil as a surgeon treats +a fractured limb, to cover it with plaster bandages, and brace it with +splints of wood or iron so that the specimen may not only be taken from +the ground but endure in safety the coming journey of a thousand or more +miles. For simpler cases or lighter objects strips of sacking, or even +paper, applied with flour and water, suffice, or pieces of sacking +soaked in thin plaster may be laid over the bone, first covering it with +thin paper in order that the plaster jacket may simply stiffen and not +adhere to it. Collecting has not always been carried on in this +systematic manner, for the development of the present methods has been +the result of years of experience; formerly there was a mere +skimming-over of the surface in what Professor Marsh used to term the +potato-gathering style, but now the effort is made to remove specimens +intact, often imbedded in large masses of rock, in order that all parts +may be preserved. + +We will take it for granted that our specimens have safely passed +through all perils by land and water, road and rail; that they have been +quarried, boxed, carted over a roadless country to the nearest railway, +and have withstood 2,000 miles of jolting in a freight-car. The first +step in reconstruction has been taken; the problem, now that the boxes +are reposing on the work-room floor, is to make the blocks of stone give +up the secrets they have guarded for ages, to free the bones from their +enveloping matrix in order that they may tell us something of the life +of the past. The method of doing this varies with the conditions under +which the material has been gathered, and if from hard clay, chalk, or +shale, the process, though tedious enough at best, is by no means so +difficult as if the specimens are imbedded in solid rock. In this case +the fragments from a given section of quarry must be assembled according +to the plan which has been carefully made as the work of exhumation +progressed, all pieces containing bone must be stuck together, and weak +parts strengthened with gum or glue. Now the mass is attacked with +hammer and chisel, and the surrounding matrix slowly and carefully cut +away until the contained bone is revealed, a process much simpler and +more expeditious in the telling than in the actuality; for the +preparator may not use the heavy tools of the ordinary stone-cutter: +sometimes an awl, or even a glover's needle, must suffice him, and the +chips cut off are so small and such care must be taken not to injure the +bone that the work is really tedious. This may, perhaps, be better +appreciated by saying that to clean a single vertebra of such a huge +Dinosaur as Diplodocus may require a month of continuous labor, and that +a score of these big and complicated bones, besides others of simpler +structure, are included in the backbone. The finished specimen weighs +over 120 pounds, while as originally collected, with all the adherent +rock, the weight was twice or thrice as great. Such a mass as this is +comparatively small, and sometimes huge blocks are taken containing +entire skulls or a number of bones, and not infrequently weighing a +ton. The largest single specimen is a skull of Triceratops, collected by +Mr. J. B. Hatcher, which weighed, when boxed, 3,650 pounds. + +Or, as the result of some mishap, or through the work of an +inexperienced collector, a valuable specimen may arrive in the shape of +a box full of irregular fragments of stone compared with which a +dissected map or an old-fashioned Chinese puzzle is simplicity itself, +and one may spend hours looking for some piece whose proper location +gives the clew to an entire section, and days, even, may be consumed +before the task is completed. While this not only tries the patience, +but the eyes as well, there is, nevertheless, a fascination about this +work of fashioning a bone out of scores, possibly hundreds, of +fragments, and watching the irregular bits of stone shaping themselves +into a mosaic that forms a portion of some creature, possibly quite new +to science, and destined to bear a name as long as itself. And thus, +after many days of toil, the bone that millions of years before sank +into the mud of some old lake-bottom or was buried in the sandy shoals +of an ancient river, is brought to light once more to help tell the tale +of the creatures of the past. + +One bone might convey a great deal of information; on the other hand it +might reveal very little; for, while it is very painful to say so, the +popular impression that it is possible to reconstruct an animal from a +single bone, or tell its size and habits from a tooth is but partially +correct, and sometimes "the eminent scientist" has come to grief even +with a great many bones at his disposal. Did not one of the ablest +anatomists describe and figure the hip-bones of a Dinosaur as its +shoulder-blade, and another, equally able, reconstruct a reptile "hind +side before," placing the head on the tail! This certainly sounds absurd +enough; but just as absurd mistakes are made by men in other walks of +life, often with far more deplorable results. + +Before passing to the restoration of the exterior of animals it may be +well to say something of the manner in which the skeleton of an extinct +animal may be reconstructed and the meaning of its various parts +interpreted. For the adjustment of the muscles is dependent on the +structure of the skeleton, and putting on the muscles means blocking out +the form, details of external appearance being supplied by the skin and +its accessories of hair, scales, or horns. Let us suppose in the present +instance that we are dealing with one of the great reptiles known as +Triceratops whose remains are among the treasures of the National Museum +at Washington, for the reconstruction of the big beast well illustrates +the methods of the palaeontologist and also the troubles by which he is +beset. Moreover, this is not a purely imaginary case, but one that is +very real, for the skeleton of this animal which was shown at Buffalo +was restored in papier-mache in exactly the manner indicated. We have a +goodly number of bones, but by no means an entire skeleton, and yet we +wish to complete the skeleton and incidentally to form some idea of the +creature's habits. Now we can interpret the past only by a knowledge of +the present, and it is by carefully studying the skeletons of the +animals of to-day that we can learn to read the meaning of the symbols +of bones left by the animals of a million yesterdays. Thus we find that +certain characters distinguish the bone of a mammal from that of a bird, +a reptile, or a fish, and these in turn from one another, and this +constitutes the A B C of comparative anatomy. And, in a like manner, the +bones of the various divisions of these main groups have to a greater or +less extent their own distinguishing characteristics, so that by first +comparing the bones of extinct animals with those of creatures that are +now living we are enabled to recognize their nearest existing relative, +and then by comparing them with one another we learn the relations they +bore in the ancient world. But it must be borne in mind that some of the +early beasts were so very different from those of to-day that until +pretty much their entire structure was known there was nothing with +which to compare odd bones. Had but a single incomplete specimen of +Triceratops come to light we should be very much in the dark concerning +him; and although remains of some thirty individuals have been +discovered, these have been so imperfect that we are very far from +having all the information we need. A great part of the head, with its +formidable looking horns, is present, and although the nose is gone, we +know from other specimens that it, too, was armed with a knob, or horn, +and that the skull ended in a beak, something like that of a snapping +turtle, though formed by a separate and extra bone; similarly the end of +the lower jaw is lacking, but we may be pretty certain that it ended in +a beak, to match that of the skull. The large leg-bones of our specimen +are mostly represented, for these being among the more solid parts of +the skeleton are more frequently preserved than any others, and though +some are from one side and some from another, this matters not. If the +hind legs were disproportionately long it would indicate that our animal +often or habitually walked erect, but as there is only difference enough +between the fore and hind limbs to enable Triceratops to browse +comfortably from the ground we would naturally place him on all fours, +even were the skull not so large as to make the creature too top-heavy +for any other mode of locomotion. Were the limbs very small in +comparison with the other bones, it would obviously mean that their +owner passed his life in the water. For a skeleton has a twofold +meaning, it is the best, the most enduring, testimony we have as to an +animal's place in nature and the relationships it sustains to the +creatures that lived with it, before it, and after it. More than this, a +skeleton is the solution of a problem in mechanics, the problem of +carrying a given weight and of adaptation to a given mode of life. Thus +the skeleton varies according as a creature dwells on land, in the +water, or in the air, and according as it feeds on grass or preys upon +its fellows. + +And so the mechanics of a skeleton afford us a clew to the habits of the +living animal. Something, too, may be gathered from the structure of the +leg-bones, for solid bones mean either a sluggish animal or a creature +of more or less aquatic habits, while hollow bones emphatically declare +a land animal, and an active one at that; and this, in the case of the +Dinosaurs, hints at predatory habits, the ability to catch and eat their +defenceless and more sluggish brethren. A claw, or, better yet, a +tooth, may confirm or refute this hint; for a blunt claw could not be +used in tearing prey limb from limb, nor would a double-edged tooth, +made for rending flesh, serve for champing grass. + +But few bones of the feet, and especially the fore feet, are present, +these smaller parts of the skeleton having been washed away before the +ponderous frame was buried in the sand, and the best that can be done is +to follow the law of probabilities and put three toes on the hind foot +and five on the fore, two of these last without claws. The single blunt +round claw among our bones shows, as do the teeth, that Triceratops was +herbivorous; it also pointed a little downward, and this tells that in +the living animal the sole of the foot was a thick, soft pad, somewhat +as it is in the elephant and rhinoceros, and that the toes were not +entirely free from one another. There are less than a dozen vertebrae and +still fewer ribs, besides half a barrelful of pieces, from which to +reconstruct a backbone twenty feet long. That the ribs are part from one +side and part from another matters no more than it did in the case of +the leg-bones; but the backbone presents a more difficult problem, +since the pieces are not like so many checkers--all made after one +pattern--but each has an individuality of its own. The total number of +vertebrae must be guessed at (perhaps it would sound better to say +estimated, but it really means the same), and knowing that some sections +are from the front part of the vertebral column and some from the back, +we must fill in the gaps as best we may. The ribs offer a little aid in +this task, giving certain details of the vertebrae, while those in turn +tell something about the adjoining parts of the ribs. We finish our +Triceratops with a tail of moderate length, as indicated by the rapid +taper of the few vertebrae available, and from these we gather, too, that +in life the tail was round, and not flattened, and that it neither +served for swimming nor for a balancing pole. And so, little by little, +have been pieced together the fragments from which we have derived our +knowledge of the past, and thus has the palaeontologist read the riddles +of the rocks. + +[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Triceratops, He of the Three-horned Face. _From +a statuette by Charles R. Knight._] + +To make these dry bones live again, to clothe them with flesh and +reconstruct the creature as he was or may have been in life, is, to +be honest, very largely guesswork, though to make a guess that shall +come anywhere near the mark not only demands a thorough knowledge of +anatomy--for the basis of all restoration must be the skeleton--but +calls for more than a passing acquaintance with the external appearance +of living animals. And while there is nothing in the bones to tell how +an animal is, or was, clad, they will at least show to what group the +creature belonged, and, that known, there are certain probabilities in +the case. A bird, for example, would certainly be clad in feathers. +Going a little farther, we might be pretty sure that the feathers of a +water-fowl would be thick and close; those of strictly terrestrial +birds, such as the ostrich and other flightless forms, lax and long. +These as general propositions; of course, in special cases, one might +easily come to grief, as in dealing with birds like penguins, which are +particularly adapted for an aquatic life, and have the feathers highly +modified. These birds depend upon their fat, and not on their feathers, +for warmth, and so their feathers have become a sort of cross between +scales and hairs. Hair and fur belong to mammals only, although these +creatures show much variety in their outer covering. The thoroughly +marine whales have discarded furs and adopted a smooth and slippery +skin,[9] well adapted to movement through the water, relying for warmth +on a thick undershirt of blubber. The earless seals that pass much of +their time on the ice have just enough hair to keep them from absolute +contact with it, warmth again being provided for by blubber. The fur +seals, which for several months in the year dwell largely on land, have +a coat of fur and hair, although warmth is mostly furnished, or rather +kept in, by fat. + +[9] _The reader is warned that this is a mere figure of speech, for, of +course, the process of adaptation to surroundings is passive, not +active, although there is a most unfortunate tendency among writers on +evolution, and particularly on mimicry, to speak of it as active. The +writer believes that no animal in the first stages of mimicry, +consciously mimics or endeavors to resemble another animal or any part +of its surroundings, but a habit at first accidental may in time become +more or less conscious._ + +No reptile, therefore, would be covered with feathers, neither, judging +from those we know to-day, would they be clad in fur or hair; but, such +coverings being barred out, there remain a great variety of plates and +scales to choose from. Folds and frills, crests and dewlaps, like +beauty, are but skin deep, and, being thus superficial, ordinarily leave +no trace of their former presence, and in respect to them the +reconstructor must trust to his imagination, with the law of +probabilities as a check rein to his fancy. This law would tell us that +such ornaments must not be so placed as to be in the way, and that while +there would be a possibility--one might even say probability--of the +great, short-headed, iguana-like Dinosaurs having dewlaps, that there +would be no great likelihood of their possessing ruffs such as that of +the Australian Chlamydosaurus (mantled lizard) to flap about their ears. +Even Stegosaurus, with his bizarre array of great plates and spines, +kept them on his back, out of the way. Such festal ornamentation would, +however, more likely be found in small, active creatures, the larger +beasts contenting themselves with plates and folds. + +Spines and plates usually leave some trace of their existence, for they +consist of a super-structure of skin or horn, built on a foundation of +bone; and while even horn decomposes too quickly to "petrify," the bone +will become fossilized and changed into enduring stone. But while this +affords a pretty sure guide to the general shape of the investing horn, +it does not give all the details, and there may have been ridges and +furrows and sculpturing that we know not of. + +Knowing, then, what the probabilities are, we have some guide to the +character of the covering that should be placed on an animal, and if we +may not be sure as to what should be done, we may be pretty certain what +should not. + +For example, to depict a Dinosaur with smooth, rubbery hide walking +about on dry land would be to violate the probabilities, for only such +exclusively aquatic creatures as the whales among mammals, and the +salamanders among batrachians, are clothed in smooth, shiny skin. There +might, however, be reason to suspect that a creature largely aquatic in +its habits did occasionally venture on land, as, for instance, when +vertebrae that seem illy adapted for carrying the weight of a land animal +are found in company with huge limb-bones and massive feet we may feel +reasonably certain that their owner passed at least a portion of his +time on _terra firma_. + +So much for the probabilities as to the covering of animals known to us +only by their fossil remains; but it is often possible to go beyond +this, and to state certainly how they were clad. For while the chances +are small that any trace of the covering of an extinct animal, other +than bony plates, will be preserved, Nature does now and then seem to +have relented, and occasionally some animal settled to rest where it was +so quickly and quietly covered with fine mud that the impression of +small scales, feathers, or even smooth skin, was preserved; curiously +enough, there seems to be scarcely any record of the imprint of hair. +Then, too, it is to be remembered that while the chances were very much +against such preservation, in the thousands or millions of times +creatures died the millionth chance might come uppermost. + +Silhouettes of those marine reptiles, the Ichthyosaurs, have been found, +probably made by the slow carbonization of animal matter, showing not +only the form of the body and tail, but revealing the existence of an +unsuspected back fin. And yet these animals were apparently clad in a +skin as thin and smooth as that of a whale. Impressions of feathers were +known long before the discovery of Archaeopteryx; a few have been found +in the Green River and Florissant shales of Wyoming, and a Hesperornis +in the collection of the State University of Kansas shows traces of the +existence of long, soft feathers on the legs and very clear imprints of +the scales and reticulated skin that covered the tarsus. From the Chalk +of Kansas, too, came the example of Tylosaur, showing that the back of +this animal was decorated with the crest shown in Mr. Knight's +restoration, one not unlike that of the modern iguana. From the Laramie +sandstone of Montana Mr. Hatcher and Mr. Butler have obtained the +impressions of portions of the skin of the great Dinosaur, Thespesius, +which show that the covering of this animal consisted largely, if not +entirely, of small, irregularly hexagonal horny scutes, slightly +thickened in the centre. The quarries of lithographic stone at +Solenhofen have yielded a few specimens of flying reptiles, +pterodactyls, which not only verify the correctness of the inference +that these creatures possessed membranous wings, like the bats, but show +the exact shape, and it was sometimes very curious, of this membrane. +And each and all of these wonderfully preserved specimens serve both to +check and guide the restorer in his task of clothing the animal as it +was in life. + +And all this help is needed, for it is an easy matter to make a +wide-sweeping deduction, apparently resting on a good basis of fact, and +yet erroneous. Remains of the Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros, found in +Siberia and Northern Europe, were thought to indicate that at the period +when these animals lived the climate was mild, a very natural inference, +since the elephants and rhinoceroses we now know are all inhabitants of +tropical climes. But the discovery of more or less complete specimens +makes it evident that the climate was not particularly mild; the +animals were simply adapted to it; instead of being naked like their +modern relatives, they were dressed for the climate in a woolly +covering. We think of the tiger as prowling through the jungles of +India, but he ranges so far north that in some localities this beast +preys upon reindeer, which are among the most northern of large mammals, +and there the tiger is clad in fairly thick fur. + +When we come to coloring a reconstructed animal we have absolutely no +guide, unless we assume that the larger a creature the more soberly will +it be colored. The great land animals of to-day, the elephant and +rhinoceros, to say nothing of the aquatic hippopotamus, are very dully +colored, and while this sombre coloration is to-day a protection, +rendering these animals less easily seen by man than they otherwise +would be, yet at the time this color was developing man was not nor were +there enemies sufficiently formidable to menace the race of elephantine +creatures. + +For where mere size furnishes sufficient protection one would hardly +expect to find protective coloration as well, unless indeed a creature +preyed upon others, when it might be advantageous to enable a predatory +animal to steal upon its prey. + +Color often exists (or is supposed to) as a sexual characteristic, to +render the male of a species attractive to, or readily recognizable by, +the female, but in the case of large animals mere size is quite enough +to render them conspicuous, and possibly this may be one of the factors +in the dull coloration of large animals. + +So while a green and yellow Triceratops would undoubtedly have been a +conspicuous feature in the Cretaceous landscape, from what we know of +existing animals it seems best to curb our fancy and, so far as large +Dinosaurs are concerned, employ the colors of a Rembrandt rather than +those of a sign painter. + +Aids, or at least hints, to the coloration of extinct animals are to be +found in the coloration of the young of various living species, for as +the changes undergone by the embryo are in a measure an epitome of the +changes undergone by a species during its evolution, so the brief color +phases or markings of the young are considered to represent the +ordinary coloring of distant ancestors. Young thrushes are spotted, +young ostriches and grebes are irregularly striped, young lions are +spotted, and in restoring the early horse, or Hyracothere, Professor +Osborn had the animal represented as faintly striped, for the reason +that zebras, the wild horses of to-day, are striped, and because the +ass, which is a primitive type of horse, is striped over the shoulders, +these being hints that the earlier horse-like forms were also striped. + +Thus just as the skeleton of a Dinosaur may be a composite structure, +made up of the bones of a dozen individuals, and these in turn mosaics +of many fragments, so may the semblance of the living animal be based on +a fact, pieced out with a probability and completed by a bit of theory. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_There is a large series of restorations of extinct animals, prepared by +Mr. Charles R. Knight, under the direction of Professor Osborn, in the +Hall of Palaeontology of the American Museum of Natural History, and +these are later to be reproduced and issued in portfolio form._ + +_Should the reader visit Princeton, he may see in the museum there a +number of B. Waterhouse Hawkins's creations--creations is the proper +word--which are of interest as examples of the early work in this line._ + +_The "Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1900" contains an +article on "The Restoration of Extinct Animals," pages 479-492, which +includes a number of plates showing the progress that has been made in +this direction._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 27.--A Hint of Buried Treasures.] + + + + +VIII + +FEATHERED GIANTS + + _"There were giants in the earth in those days."_ + + +Nearly every group of animals has its giants, its species which tower +above their fellows as Goliath of Gath stood head and shoulders above +the Philistine hosts; and while some of these are giants only in +comparison with their fellows, belonging to families whose members are +short of stature, others are sufficiently great to be called giants +under any circumstances. Some of these giants live to-day, some have but +recently passed away, and some ceased to be long ages before man trod +this earth. The most gigantic of mammals--the whales--still survive, and +the elephant of to-day suffers but little in comparison with the +mammoth of yesterday; the monstrous Dinosaurs, greatest of all +reptiles--greatest, in fact, of all animals that have walked the +earth--flourished thousands upon thousands of years ago. As for birds, +some of the giants among them are still living, some existed long +geologic periods ago, and a few have so recently vanished from the scene +that their memory still lingers amid the haze of tradition. The best +known among these, as well as the most recent in point of time, are the +Moas of New Zealand, first brought to notice by the Rev. W. Colenso, +later on Bishop of New Zealand, one of the many missionaries to whom +Science is under obligations. Early in 1838, Bishop Colenso, while on a +missionary visit to the East Cape region, heard from the natives of +Waiapu tales of a monstrous bird, called Moa, having the head of a man, +that inhabited the mountain-side some eighty miles away. This mighty +bird, the last of his race, was said to be attended by two equally huge +lizards that kept guard while he slept, and on the approach of man +wakened the Moa, who immediately rushed upon the intruders and trampled +them to death. None of the Maoris had seen this bird, but they had seen +and somewhat irreverently used for making parts of their fishing +tackle, bones of its extinct relatives, and these bones they declared to +be as large as those of an ox. + +About the same time another missionary, the Rev. Richard Taylor, found a +bone ascribed to the Moa, and met with a very similar tradition among +the natives of a near-by district, only, as the foot of the rainbow +moves away as we move toward it, in his case the bird was said to dwell +in quite a different locality from that given by the natives of East +Cape. While, however, the Maoris were certain that the Moa still lived, +and to doubt its existence was little short of a crime, no one had +actually seen it, and as time went on and the bird still remained unseen +by any explorer, hope became doubt and doubt certainty, until it even +became a mooted question whether such a bird had existed within the past +ten centuries, to say nothing of having lived within the memory of man. + +But if we do not know the living birds, their remains are scattered +broadcast over hillside and plain, concealed in caves, buried in the mud +of swamps, and from these we gain a good idea of their size and +structure, while chance has even made it possible to know something of +their color and general appearance. This chance was the discovery of a +few specimens, preserved in exceptionally dry caves on the South Island, +which not only had some of the bones still united by ligaments, but +patches of skin clinging to the bones, and bearing numerous feathers of +a chestnut color tipped with white. These small, straggling, rusty +feathers are not much to look at, but when we reflect that they have +been preserved for centuries without any care whatever, while the +buffalo bugs have devoured our best Smyrna rugs in spite of all possible +precautions, our respect for them increases. + +[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Relics of the Moa.] + +From the bones we learn that there were a great many kinds of Moas, +twenty at least, ranging in size from those little larger than a turkey +to that giant among giants, _Dinornis maximus_, which stood at least ten +feet high,[10] or two feet higher than the largest ostrich, and may +well claim the distinction of being the tallest of all known birds. We +also learn from the bones that not only were the Moas flightless, but +that many of them were absolutely wingless, being devoid even of such +vestiges of wings as we find in the Cassowary or Apteryx. But if Nature +deprived these birds of wings, she made ample amends in the matter of +legs, those of some species, the Elephant-footed Moa, _Pachyornis +elephantopus_, for example, being so massively built as to cause one to +wonder what the owner used them for, although the generally accepted +theory is that they were used for scratching up the roots of ferns on +which the Moas are believed to have fed. And if a blow from an irate +ostrich is sufficient to fell a man, what must have been the kicking +power of an able-bodied Moa? Beside this bird the ostrich would appear +as slim and graceful as a gazelle beside a prize ox. + +[10] _The height of the Moas, and even of some species of AEpyornis, is +often stated to be twelve or fourteen feet, but such a height can only +be obtained by placing the skeleton in a wholly unnatural attitude._ + +The Moas were confined to New Zealand, some species inhabiting the North +Island, some the South, very few being common to both, and from these +peculiarities of distribution geologists deduce that at some early +period in the history of the earth the two islands formed one, that +later on the land subsided, leaving the islands separated by a strait, +and that since this subsidence there has been sufficient time for the +development of the species peculiar to each island. Although Moas were +still numerous when man made his appearance in this part of the world, +the large deposits of their bones indicate that they were on the wane, +and that natural causes had already reduced the feathered population of +these islands. A glacial period is believed to have wrought their +destruction, and in one great morass, abounding in springs, their bones +occur in such enormous numbers, layer upon layer, that it is thought the +birds sought the place where the flowing springs might afford their feet +at least some respite from the biting cold, and there perished miserably +by thousands. + +What Nature spared man finished, and legends of Moa hunts and Moa feasts +still lingered among the Maoris when the white man came and began in +turn the extermination of the Maori. The theory has been advanced, with +much to support it, that the big birds were eaten off the face of the +earth by an earlier race than the Maoris, and that after the extirpation +of the Moas the craving for flesh naturally led to cannibalism. But by +whomsoever the destruction was wrought, the result was the same, the +habitat of these feathered giants knew them no longer, while multitudes +of charred bones, interspersed with fragments of egg-shells, bear +testimony to former barbaric feasts. + +It is a far cry from New Zealand to Madagascar, but thither must we go, +for that island was, pity we cannot say is, inhabited by a race of giant +birds from whose eggs it has been thought may have been hatched the Roc +of Sindbad. Arabian tales, as we all know, locate the Roc either in +Madagascar or in some adjacent island to the north and east, and it is +far from unlikely that legends of the AEpyornis, backed by the +substantial proof of its enormous eggs, may have been the slight +foundation of fact whereon the story-teller erected his structure of +fiction. True, the Roc of fable was a gigantic bird of prey capable of +bearing away an elephant in its talons, while the AEpyornis has shed its +wings and shrunk to dimensions little larger than an ostrich, but this +is the inevitable result of closer acquaintance and the application of a +two-foot rule. + +Like the Moa the AEpyornis seems to have lived in tradition long after it +became extinct, for a French history of Madagascar, published as early +as 1658 makes mention of a large bird, or kind of ostrich, said to +inhabit the southern end of the island. Still, in spite of bones having +been found that bear evident traces of the handiwork of man, it is +possible that this and other reports were due to the obvious necessity +of having some bird to account for the presence of the eggs. + +The actual introduction of the AEpyornis to science took place in 1834, +when a French traveller sent Jules Verreaux, the ornithologist, a sketch +of a huge egg, saying that he had seen two of that size, one sawed in +twain to make bowls, the other, traversed by a stick, serving in the +preparation of rice uses somewhat in contrast with the proverbial +fragility of egg-shells. A little later another traveller procured some +fragments of egg-shells, but it was not until 1851 that any entire eggs +were obtained, when two were secured, and with a few bones sent to +France, where Geoffroy St. Hilaire bestowed upon them the name of +_AEpyornis maximus_ (the greatest lofty bird). Maximus the eggs remain, +for they still hold the record for size; but so far as the bird that is +supposed to have laid them is concerned, the name was a little +premature, for other and larger species subsequently came to hand. +Between the AEpyornithes and the Moas Science has had a hard time, for +the supply of big words was not large enough to go around, and some had +to do duty twice. In the way of generic names we have Dinornis, terrible +bird; AEpyornis, high bird; Pachyornis, stout bird; and Brontornis, +thunder bird, while for specific names there are robustus, maximus, +titan; gravis, heavy; immanis, enormous; crassus, stout; ingens, great; +and elephantopus, elephant-footed--truly a goodly array of +large-sounding words. But to return to the big eggs! Usually we look +upon those of the ostrich as pretty large, but an ostrich egg measures +4-1/2 by 6 inches, while that of the AEpyornis is 9 by 13 inches; or, to +put it another way, it would hold the contents of six ostrichs' eggs, or +one hundred and forty-eight hens' eggs, or thirty thousand humming +birds' eggs; and while this is very much smaller than a waterbutt, it is +still as large as a bucket, and one or two such eggs might suffice to +make an omelet for Gargantua himself. + +The size of an egg is no safe criterion of the size of the bird that +laid it, for a large bird may lay a small egg, or a small bird a large +one. Comparing the egg of the great Moa with that of our AEpyornis one +might think the latter much the larger bird, say twelve feet in height, +when the facts in the case are that while there was no great difference +in the weight of the two, that difference, and a superiority of at least +two feet in height, are in favor of the bird that laid the smaller egg. +The record of large eggs, however, belongs to the Apteryx, a New Zealand +bird smaller than a hen, though distantly related to the Moas, which +lays an egg about one-third of its own weight, measuring 3 by 5 inches; +perhaps it is not to be wondered at that the bird lays but two. + +Although most of the eggs of these big birds that have been found have +literally been unearthed from the muck of swamps, now and then one comes +to light in a more interesting manner as, for example, when a perfect +egg of AEpyornis was found afloat after a hurricane, bobbing serenely up +and down with the waves near St. Augustine's Bay, or when an egg of the +Moa was exhumed from an ancient Maori grave, where for years it had lain +unharmed, safely clasped between the skeleton fingers of the occupant. +So far very few of these huge eggs have made their way to this country, +and the only egg of AEpyornis now on this side of the water is the +property of a private individual. + +Most recent in point of discovery, but oldest in point of time, are the +giant birds from Patagonia, which are burdened with the name of +Phororhacidae, a name that originated in an error, although the error may +well be excused. The first fragment of one of these great birds to come +to light was a portion of the lower jaw, and this was so massive, so +un-bird-like, that the finder dubbed it _Phororhacos_, and so it must +remain. + +[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Eggs of Feathered Giants, AEpyornis, Ostrich, +Moa, Compared with a Hen's Egg.] + +It is a pity that all the large names were used up before this group of +birds was discovered, and it is particularly unfortunate that Dinornis, +terrible bird, was applied to the root-eating Moas, for these Patagonian +birds, with their massive limbs, huge heads and hooked beaks, were truly +worthy of such a name; and although in nowise related to the eagles, +they may in habit have been terrestrial birds of prey. Not all the +members of this family are giants, for as in other groups, some are big +and some little, but the largest among them might be styled the Daniel +Lambert of the feathered race. _Brontornis_, for example, the thunder +bird, or as the irreverent translate it, the thundering big bird, had +leg-bones larger than those of an ox, the drumstick measuring 30 inches +in length by 2-1/2 inches in diameter, or 4-1/4 inches across the ends, +while the tarsus, or lower bone of the leg to which the toes are +attached, was 16-1/2 inches long and 5-1/2 inches wide where the toes +join on. Bear this in mind the next time you see a large turkey, or +compare these bones with those of an ostrich: but lest you may forget, +it may be said that the same bone of a fourteen-pound turkey is 5-1/2 +inches long, and one inch wide at either end, while that of an ostrich +measures 19 inches long and 2 inches across the toes, or 3 at the upper +end. + +If Brontornis was a heavy-limbed bird, he was not without near rivals +among the Moas, while the great Phororhacos, one of his contemporaries, +was not only nearly as large, but quite unique in build. Imagine a bird +seven or eight feet in height from the sole of his big, sharp-clawed +feet, to the top of his huge head, poise this head on a neck as thick as +that of a horse, arm it with a beak as sharp as an icepick and almost as +formidable, and you have a fair idea of this feathered giant of the +ancient pampas. The head indeed was truly colossal for that of a bird, +measuring 23 inches in length by 7 in depth, while that of the racehorse +Lexington, and he was a good-sized horse, measures 22 inches long by +5-1/2 inches deep. The depth of the jaw is omitted because we wish to +make as good a case as possible for the bird, and the jaw of a horse is +so deep as to give him an undue advantage in that respect. + +[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Skull of Phororhacos Compared with that of the +Race-horse Lexington.] + +We can only speculate on the food of these great birds, and for aught we +know to the contrary they may have caught fish, fed upon carrion, or +used their powerful feet and huge beaks for grubbing roots; but if they +were not more or less carnivorous, preying upon such reptiles, mammals +and other birds as came within reach, then nature apparently made a +mistake in giving them such a formidable equipment of beak and claw. So +far as habits go we might be justified in calling them cursorial birds +of prey. + +[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Leg of a Horse Compared with that of the Giant +Moa.] + +We really know very little about these Patagonian giants, but they are +interesting not only from their great size and astounding skulls, but +because of the early age (Miocene) at which they lived and because in +spite of their bulk they are in nowise related to the ostriches, but +belong near the heron family. As usual, we have no idea why they became +extinct, but in this instance man is guiltless, for they lived and died +long before he made his appearance, and the ever-convenient hypothesis +"change of climate" may be responsible for their disappearance. + +Something, perhaps, remains to be said concerning the causes which seem +to have led to the development of these giant birds, as well as the +reasons for their flightless condition and peculiar distribution, for it +will be noticed that, with the exception of the African and South +American ostriches the great flightless birds as a rule are, and were, +confined to uninhabited or sparsely populated islands, and this is +equally true of the many small, but equally flightless birds. It is a +seemingly harsh law of nature that all living beings shall live in a +more or less active struggle with each other and with their +surroundings, and that those creatures which possess some slight +advantage over their fellows in the matter of speed, or strength, or +ability to adapt themselves to surrounding conditions, shall prosper at +the expense of the others. In the power of flight, birds have a great +safeguard against changes of climate with their accompanying variations +in the supply of food, and, to a lesser extent, against their various +enemies, including man. This power of flight, acquired early in their +geological history, has enabled birds to spread over the length and +breadth of the globe as no other group of animals has done, and to +thrive under the most varying conditions, and it would seem that if this +power were lost it must sooner or later work harm. Now to-day we find no +great wingless birds in thickly populated regions, or where beasts of +prey abound; the ostriches roam the desert wastes of Arabia, Africa and +South America where men are few and savage beasts scarce, and against +these is placed a fleetness of foot inherited from ancestors who +acquired it before man was. The heavy cassowaries dwell in the thinly +inhabited, thickly wooded islands of Malaysia, where again there are no +large carnivores and where the dense vegetation is some safeguard +against man; the emu comes from the Australian plains, where also there +are no four-footed enemies[11] and where his ancestors dwelt in peace +before the advent of man. And the same things are true of the Moas, the +AEpyornithes, the flightless birds of Patagonia, the recent dodo of +Mauritius and the solitaire of Rodriguez, each and all of which +flourished in places where there were no men and practically no other +enemies. Hence we deduce that absence of enemies is the prime factor in +the existence of flightless birds,[12] although presence of food is an +essential, while isolation, or restriction to a limited area, plays an +important part by keeping together those birds, or that race of birds, +whose members show a tendency to disuse their wings. It will be seen +that such combinations of circumstances will most naturally be found on +islands whose geological history is such that they have had no +connection with adjacent continents, or such a very ancient connection +that they were not then peopled with beasts of prey, while subsequently +their distance from other countries has prevented them from receiving +such population by accident in recent times and has also retarded the +arrival of man. + +[11] _The dingo, or native dog, is not forgotten, but, like man, it is a +comparatively recent animal._ + +[12] _Note that in Tasmania, which is very near Australia, both in space +and in the character of its animals, there are two carnivorous mammals, +the Tasmanian "Wolf" and the Tasmanian Devil, and no flightless birds._ + +Once established, flightlessness and size play into one another's hands; +the flightless bird has no limit placed on its size[13] while granted a +food supply and immunity from man; the larger the bird the less the +necessity for wings to escape from four-footed foes. So long as the +climate was favorable and man absent, the big, clumsy bird might thrive, +but upon the coming of man, or in the face of any unfavorable change of +climate, he would be at a serious disadvantage and hence whenever either +of these two factors has been brought to bear against them the feathered +giants have vanished. + +[13] _While we do not know the limit of size to a flying creature, none +has as yet been found whose wings would spread over twenty feet from tip +to tip, and it is evident that wings larger than this would demand great +strength for their manipulation._ + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_There is a fine collection of mounted skeletons of various species of +Moas in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass., and +another in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. A few +_other skeletons and numerous bones are to be found in other +institutions, but the author is not aware of any egg being in this +country. Specimens of the AEpyornis are rare in this country, but Mr. +Robert Gilfort, of Orange, N.J., is the possessor of a very fine egg. A +number of eggs have been sold in London, the prices ranging from L200 +down to L42, this last being much less than prices paid for eggs of the +great auk. But then, the great auk is somewhat of a fad, and there are +just enough eggs in existence to bring one into the market every little +while. Besides, the number of eggs of the great auk is a fixed quantity, +while no one knows how many more of AEpyornis remain to be discovered in +the swamps of Madagascar. No specimens of the gigantic Patagonian birds +are now in this country, but a fine example of one of the smaller forms, +Pelycornis, including the only breast-bone yet found, is in the Museum +of Princeton University._ + +_The largest known tibia of a Moa, the longest bird-bone known, is in +the collection of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand; it +is 3 feet 3 inches long. This, however, is exceptional, the measurements +of the leg-bones of an ordinary Dinornis maximus being as follows: +Femur, 18 inches; tibia, 32 inches; tarsus, 19 inches, a total of 5 feet +9 inches. The egg measures 10-1/2 by 6-1/2 inches._ + +_There is plenty of literature, and very interesting literature, +about the Moas, but, unfortunately, the best of it is not always +accessible, being contained in the "New Zealand Journal of Science" and +the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." The volume of +"Transactions" for 1893, being vol. xxvi., contains a very full list of +articles relating to the Moas, compiled by Mr. A. Hamilton; it will be +found to commence on page 229. There is a good article on Moa in +Newton's "Dictionary of Birds," a book that should be in every library._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 32.--The Three Giants, Phororhacos, Moa, Ostrich.] + + + + +IX + +THE ANCESTRY OF THE HORSE + + "_Said the little Eohippus + I am going to be a horse + And on my middle finger-nails + To run my earthly course._" + + +The American whose ancestors came over in the "Mayflower" has a proper +pride in the length of the line of his descent. The Englishman whose +genealogical tree sprang up at the time of William the Conqueror has, in +its eight centuries of growth, still larger occasion for pluming himself +on the antiquity of his family. But the pedigree of even the latter is a +thing of yesterday when compared with that of the horse, whose family +records, according to Professor Osborn, reach backward for something +like 2,000,000 years. And if, as we have been told, "it is a good thing +to have ancestors, but sometimes a little hard on the ancestor," in +this instance at least the founders of the family have every reason to +regard their descendants with undisguised pride. For the horse family +started in life in a small way, and the first of the line, the +Hyracotherium, was "a little animal no bigger than a fox, and on +five[14] toes he scampered over Tertiary rocks," in the age called +Eocene, because it was the morning of life for the great group of +mammals whose culminating point was man. At that time, western North +America was a country of many lakes, for the most part comparatively +shallow, around the reedy margins of which moved a host of animals, +quite unlike those of to-day, and yet foreshadowing them, the +forerunners of the rhinoceros, tapir, and the horse. + +[14] _Four, to be exact; but we prefer to sacrifice the foot of the +Hyracothere rather than to take liberties with one of the feet of Mrs. +Stetson's poem._ + +The early horse--we may call him so by courtesy, although he was then +very far from being a true horse--was an insignificant little creature, +apparently far less likely to succeed in life's race than his bulky +competitors, and yet, by making the most of their opportunities, his +descendants have survived, while most of theirs have dropped by the +wayside; and finally, by the aid of man, the horse has become spread +over the length and breadth of the habitable globe. + +[Illustration: Fig. 33.--Skeleton of the Modern Horse and of His Eocene +Ancestor.] + +Now right here it may be asked, How do we know that the little +Hyracothere _was_ the progenitor of the horse, and how can it be shown +that there is any bond of kinship between him and, for example, the +great French Percheron? There is only one way in which we can obtain +this knowledge, and but one method by which the relationship can be +shown, and that is by collecting the fossil remains of animals long +extinct and comparing them with the bones of the recent horse, a branch +of science known as Palaeontology. It has taken a very long time to +gather the necessary evidence, and it has taken a vast amount of hard +work in our western Territories, for "the country that is as hot as +Hades, watered by stagnant alkali pools, is almost invariably the +richest in fossils." Likewise it has called for the expenditure of much +time and more patience to put together some of this petrified evidence, +fragmentary in every sense of the word, and get it into such shape that +it could be handled by the anatomist. Still, the work has been done, +and, link by link, the chain has been constructed that unites the horse +of to-day with the horse of very many yesterdays. + +The very first links in this chain are the remains of the bronze age +and those found among the ruins of the ancient Swiss lake dwellings; but +earlier still than these are the bones of horses found abundantly in +northern Europe, Asia, and America. The individual bones and teeth of +some of these horses are scarcely distinguishable from those of to-day, +a fact noted in the name, _Equus fraternus_, applied to one species; and +when teeth alone are found, it is at times practically impossible to say +whether they belong to a fossil horse or to a modern animal. But when +enough scattered bones are gathered to make a fairly complete skeleton, +it becomes evident that the fossil horse had a proportionately larger +head and smaller feet than his existing relative, and that he was a +little more like an ass or zebra, for the latter, spite of his gay coat, +is a near relative of the lowly ass. Moreover, primitive man made +sketches of the primitive horse, just as he did of the mammoth, and +these indicate that the horse of those days was something like an +overgrown Shetland pony, low and heavily built, large-headed and +rough-coated. For the old cave-dwellers of Europe were intimately +acquainted with the prehistoric horses, using them for food, as they +did almost every animal that fell beneath their flint arrows and stone +axes. And if one may judge from the abundance of bones, the horses must +have roamed about in bands, just as the horses escaped from civilization +roam, or have roamed, over the pampas of South America and the prairies +of the West. + +The horse was just as abundant in North America in Pleistocene time as +in Europe; but there is no evidence to show that it was contemporary +with early man in North America, and, even were this the case, it is +generally believed that long before the discovery of America the horse +had disappeared. And yet, so plentiful and so fresh are his remains, and +so much like those of the mustang, that the late Professor Cope was wont +to say that it almost seemed as if the horse _might_ have lingered in +Texas until the coming of the white man. And Sir William Flower wrote: +"There is a possibility of the animal having still existed, in a wild +state, in some parts of the continent remote from that which was first +visited by the Spaniards, where they were certainly unknown. It has +been suggested that the horses which were found by Cabot in La Plata in +1530 cannot have been introduced." + +Still we have not the least little bit of positive proof that such was +the case, and although the site of many an ancient Indian village has +been carefully explored, no bones of the horse have come to light, or if +they have been found, bones of the ox or sheep were also present to tell +that the village was occupied long after the advent of the whites. It is +also a curious fact that within historic times there have been no wild +horses, in the true sense of the word, unless indeed those found on the +steppes north of the Sea of Azof be wild, and this is very doubtful. But +long before the dawn of history the horse was domesticated in Europe, +and Caesar found the Germans, and even the old Britons, using war +chariots drawn by horses--for the first use man seems to have made of +the horse was to aid him in killing off his fellow-man, and not until +comparatively modern times was the animal employed in the peaceful arts +of agriculture. The immediate predecessors of these horses were +considerably smaller, being about the size and build of a pony, but +they were very much like a horse in structure, save that the teeth were +shorter. As they lived during Pliocene times, they have been named +"Pliohippus." + +Going back into the past a step farther, though a pretty long step if we +reckon by years, we come upon a number of animals very much like horses, +save for certain cranial peculiarities and the fact that they had three +toes on each foot, while the horse, as every one knows, has but one toe. +Now, if we glance at the skeleton of a horse, we will see on either side +of the canon-bone, in the same situation as the upper part of the little +toes of the Hippotherium, as these three-toed horses are called, a long +slender bone, termed by veterinarians the splint bone; and it requires +no anatomical training to see that the bones in the two animals are the +same. The horse lacks the lower part of his side toes, that is all, just +as man will very probably some day lack the last bones of his little +toe. We find an approach to this condition in some of the Hippotheres +even, known as Protohippus, in which the side toes are quite small, +foreshadowing the time when they shall have disappeared entirely. It may +also be noted here that the splint bones of the horses of the bronze age +are a little longer than those of existing horses, and that they are +never united with the large central toe, while nowadays there is +something of a tendency for the three bones to fuse into one, although +part of this tendency the writer believes to be due to inflammation set +up by the strain of the pulling and hauling the animal is now called +upon to do. Some of these three-toed Hippotheres are not in the direct +line of ancestry of the horse, but are side branches on the family tree, +having become so highly specialized in certain directions that no +further progress horseward was possible. + +Backward still, and the bones we find in the Miocene strata of the West, +belonging to those ancestors of the horse to which the name of +Mesohippus has been given because they are midway in time and structure +between the horse of the past and present, tell us that then all horses +were small and that all had three toes on a foot, while the fore feet +bore even the suggestion of a fourth toe. From this to our Eocene +Hyracothere with four toes is only another long-time step. We may go +even beyond this in time and structure, and carry back the line of the +horse to animals which only remotely resembled him and had five good +toes to a foot; but while these contained the possibility of a horse, +they made no show of it. + +[Illustration: Fig. 34.--The Development of the Horse.] + +Increase in size and decrease in number of the toes were not the only +changes that were required to transform the progeny of the Hyracothere +into a horse. These are the most evident; but the increased complexity +in the structure of the teeth was quite as important. The teeth of +gnawing animals have often been compared to a chisel which is made of a +steel plate with soft iron backing, and the teeth of a horse, or of +other grass-eating animals, are simply an elaboration of this idea. The +hard enamel, which represents the steel, is set in soft dentine, which +represents the iron, and in use the dentine wears away the faster of the +two, so that the enamel stands up in ridges, each tooth becoming, as it +is correctly termed, "a grinder." In a horse the plates of enamel form +curved, complex, irregular patterns; but as we go back in time, the +patterns become less and less elaborate, until in the Hyracothere, +standing at the foot of the family tree, the teeth are very simple in +structure. Moreover, his teeth were of limited growth, while those of +the horse grow for a considerable time, thus compensating for the wear +to which they are subjected. + +We have, then, this direct evidence as to the genealogy of the horse, +that between the little Eocene Hyracothere and the modern horse we can +place a series of animals by which we can pass by gradual stages from +one to the other, and that as we come upward there is an increase in +stature, in the complexity of the teeth, and in the size of the brain. +At the same time, the number of toes decreases, which tells that the +animals were developing more and more speed; for it is a rule that the +fewer the toes the faster the animal: the fastest of birds, the ostrich, +has but two toes, and one of these is mostly ornamental; and the fastest +of mammals, the horse, has but one. + +All breeders of fancy stock, particularly of pigeons and poultry, +recognize the tendency of animals to revert to the forms whence they +were derived and reproduce some character of a distant ancestor; to +"throw back," as the breeders term it. If now, instead of reproducing a +trait or feature possessed by some ancestor a score, a hundred, or +perhaps a thousand years ago, there should reappear a characteristic of +some ancestor that flourished 100,000 years back, we should have a +seeming abnormality, but really a case of reversion; and the more we +become acquainted with the structure of extinct animals and the +development of those now living, the better able are we to explain these +apparent abnormalities. + +Bearing in mind that the two splint bones of the horse correspond to the +upper portions of the side toes of the Hippotherium and Mesohippus, it +is easy to see that if for any reason these should develop into toes, +they would make the foot of a modern horse appear like that of his +distant ancestor. While such a thing rarely happens, yet now and then +nature apparently does attempt to reproduce a horse's foot after the +ancient pattern, for occasionally we meet with a horse having, instead +of the single toe with which the average horse is satisfied, one or +possibly two extra toes. Sometimes the toe is extra in every sense of +the word, being a mere duplication of the central toe; but sometimes it +is an actual development of one of the splint bones. No less a personage +than Julius Caesar possessed one of these polydactyl horses, and the +reporters of the _Daily Roman_ and the _Tiberian Gazette_ doubtless +wrote it up in good journalistic Latin, for we find the horse described +as having feet that were almost human, and as being looked upon with +great awe. While this is the most celebrated of extra-toed horses, other +and more plebeian individuals have been much more widely known through +having been exhibited throughout the country under such titles as +"Clique, the horse with six feet," "the eight-footed Cuban horse," and +so on; and possibly some of these are familiar to readers of this page. + +So the collateral evidence, though scanty, bears out the circumstantial +proof, derived from fossil bones, that the horse has developed from a +many-toed ancestor; and the evidence points toward the little +Hyracothere as being that ancestor. It remains only to show some good +reason why this development should have taken place, or to indicate the +forces by which it was brought about. We have heard much about "the +survival of the fittest," a phrase which simply means that those animals +best adapted to their surroundings will survive, while those ill adapted +will perish. But it should be added that it means also that the animals +must be able to adapt themselves to changes in their environment, or to +change with it. Living beings cannot stand still indefinitely; they must +progress or perish. And this seems to have been the cause for the +extinction of the huge quadrupeds that flourished at the time of the +three-toed Miocene horse. They were adapted to their environment as it +was; but when the western mountains were thrust upward, cutting off the +moist winds from the Pacific, making great changes in the rainfall and +climate to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains, these big beasts, slow +of foot and dull of brain, could not keep pace with the change, and +their race vanished from the face of the earth. The day of the little +Hyracothere was at the beginning of the great series of changes by which +the lake country of the West, with its marshy flats and rank vegetation, +became transformed into dry uplands sparsely clad with fine grasses. On +these dry plains the more nimble-footed animals would have the advantage +in the struggle for existence; and while the four-toed foot would keep +its owner from sinking in soft ground, he was handicapped when it became +a question of speed, for not only is a fleet animal better able to flee +from danger than his slower fellows, but in time of drouth he can cover +the greater extent of territory in search of food or water. So, too, as +the rank rushes gave place to fine grasses, often browned and withered +beneath the summer's sun, the complex tooth had an advantage over that +of simpler structure, while the cutting-teeth, so completely developed +in the horse family, enabled their possessors to crop the grass as +closely as one could do it with scissors. Likewise, up to a certain +point, the largest, most powerful animal will not only conquer, or +escape from, his enemies, but prevail over rivals of his own kind as +well, and thus it came to pass that those early members of the horse +family who were preeminent in speed and stature, and harmonized best +with their surroundings, outstripped their fellows and transmitted these +qualities to their progeny, until, as a result of long ages of natural +selection, there was developed the modern horse. The rest man has done: +the heavy, slow-paced dray horse, the fleet trotter, the huge Percheron, +and the diminutive pony are one and all the recent products of +artificial selection. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_The best collection of fossil horses, and one specially arranged to +illustrate the line of descent of the modern horse, is to be found in +the American Museum of Natural History, New York, but some good +specimens, of particular interest because they were described by +Professor Marsh and studied by Huxley are in the Yale University Museum. +They are referred to in Huxley's "American Addresses; Lectures on +Evolution." "The Horse," by Sir W. H. Flower, discusses the horse in a +popular manner from various points of view and contains numerous +references to books and articles on the subject from which anyone +wishing for further information could obtain it._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 35.--The Mammoth. _From a drawing by Charles R. +Knight._] + + + + +X + +THE MAMMOTH + + "_His legs were as thick as the bole of the beech, + His tusks as the buttonwood white, + While his lithe trunk wound like a sapling around + An oak in the whirlwind's might._" + + _In the October number of McClure's Magazine for 1899 was + published a short story, "The Killing of the Mammoth," by "H. + Tukeman," which, to the amazement of the editors, was taken by + many readers not as fiction, but as a contribution to natural + history. Immediately after the appearance of that number of the + magazine, the authorities of the Smithsonian Institution, in + which the author had located the remains of the beast of his + fancy, were beset with visitors to see the stuffed mammoth, and + the daily mail of the Magazine, as well as that of the + Smithsonian Institution, was filled with inquiries for more + information and for requests to settle wagers as to whether it + was a true story or not. The contribution in question was + printed purely as fiction, with no idea of misleading the + public, and was entitled a story in the table of contents. We + doubt if any writer of realistic fiction ever had a more + general and convincing proof of success._ + + +About three centuries ago, in 1696, a Russian, one Ludloff by name, +described some bones belonging to what the Tartars called "Mamantu"; +later on, Blumenbach pressed the common name into scientific use as +"Mammut," and Cuvier gallicized this into "Mammouth," whence by an easy +transition we get our familiar mammoth. We are so accustomed to use the +word to describe anything of remarkable size that it would be only +natural to suppose that the name Mammoth was given to the extinct +elephant because of its extraordinary bulk. Exactly the reverse of this +is true, however, for the word came to have its present meaning because +the original possessor of the name was a huge animal. The Siberian +peasants called the creature "Mamantu," or "ground-dweller," because +they believed it to be a gigantic mole, passing its life beneath the +ground and perishing when by any accident it saw the light. The +reasoning that led to this belief was very simple and the logic very +good; no one had ever seen a live Mamantu, but there were plenty of its +bones lying at or near the surface; consequently if the animal did not +live above the ground, it must dwell below. + +To-day, nearly every one knows that the mammoth was a sort of big, +hairy elephant, now extinct, and nearly every one has a general idea +that it lived in the North. There is some uncertainty as to whether the +mammoth was a mastodon, or the mastodon a mammoth, and there is a great +deal of misconception as to the size and abundance of this big beast. It +may be said in passing that the mastodon is only a second or third +cousin of the mammoth, but that the existing elephant of Asia is a very +near relative, certainly as near as a first cousin, possibly a very +great grandson. Popularly, the mammoth is supposed to have been a +colossus somewhere from twelve to twenty feet in height, beside whom +modern elephants would seem insignificant; but as "trout lose much in +dressing," so mammoths shrink in measuring, and while there were +doubtless Jumbos among them in the way of individuals of exceptional +magnitude, the majority were decidedly under Jumbo's size. The only +mounted mammoth skeleton in this country, that in the Chicago Academy of +Sciences, is one of the largest, the thigh-bone measuring five feet one +inch in length, or a foot more than that of Jumbo; and as Jumbo stood +eleven feet high, the rule of three applied to this thigh-bone would +give the living animal a height of thirteen feet eight inches. The +height of this specimen is given as thirteen feet in its bones, with an +estimate of fourteen feet in its clothes; but as the skeleton is +obviously mounted altogether too high, it is pretty safe to say that +thirteen feet is a good, fair allowance for the height of this animal +when alive. As for the majority of mammoths, they would not average more +than nine or ten feet high. Sir Samuel Baker tells us that he has seen +plenty of wild African elephants that would exceed Jumbo by a foot or +more, and while this must be accepted with caution, since unfortunately +he neglected to put a tape-line on them, yet Mr. Thomas Baines did +measure a specimen twelve feet high. This, coupled with Sir Samuel's +statement, indicates that there is not so much difference between the +mammoth and the elephant as there might be. This applies to the mammoth +_par excellence_, the species known scientifically as _Elephas +primigenius_, whose remains are found in many parts of the Northern +Hemisphere and occur abundantly in Siberia and Alaska. There were other +elephants than the mammoth, and some that exceeded him in size, notably +_Elephas meridionalis_ of southern Europe, and _Elephas columbi_ of our +Southern and Western States, but even the largest cannot positively be +asserted to have exceeded a height of thirteen feet. Tusks offer +convenient terms of comparison, and those of an average fully grown +mammoth are from eight to ten feet in length; those of the famous St. +Petersburg specimen and those of the huge specimen in Chicago measuring +respectively nine feet three inches, and nine feet eight inches. So far +as the writer is aware, the largest tusks actually measured are two from +Alaska, one twelve feet ten inches long, weighing 190 pounds, reported +by Mr. Jay Beach; and another eleven feet long, weighing 200 pounds, +noted by Mr. T. L. Brevig. Compared with these we have the big tusk that +used to stand on Fulton Street, New York, just an inch under nine feet +long, and weighing 184 pounds, or the largest shown at Chicago in 1893, +which was seven feet six inches long, and weighed 176 pounds. The +largest, most beautiful tusks, probably, ever seen in this country were +a pair brought from Zanzibar and displayed by Messrs. Tiffany & Company +in 1900. The measurements and weights of these were as follows: length +along outer curve, ten feet and three-fourths of an inch, circumference +one foot, eleven inches, weight, 224 pounds; length along outer curve, +ten feet, three and one-half inches, circumference two feet and +one-fourth of an inch, weight, 239 pounds. + +For our knowledge of the external appearance of the mammoth we are +indebted to the more or less entire examples which have been found at +various times in Siberia, but mainly to the noted specimen found in 1799 +near the Lena, embedded in the ice, where it had been reposing, so +geologists tell us, anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 years. How the +creature gradually thawed out of its icy tomb, and the tusks were taken +by the discoverer and sold for ivory; how the dogs fed upon the flesh in +summer, while bears and wolves feasted upon it in winter; how the animal +was within an ace of being utterly lost to science when, at the last +moment, the mutilated remains were rescued by Mr. Adams, is an old +story, often told and retold. Suffice it to say that, besides the bones, +enough of the beast was preserved to tell us exactly what was the +covering of this ancient elephant, and to show that it was a creature +adapted to withstand the northern cold and fitted for living on the +branches of the birch and hemlock. + +[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Skeleton of the Mammoth in the Royal Museum of +St. Petersburg.] + +The exact birthplace of the mammoth is as uncertain as that of many +other great characters; but his earliest known resting-place is in the +Cromer Forest Beds of England, a country inhabited by him at a time when +the German Ocean was dry land and Great Britain part of a peninsula. +Here his remains are found to-day, while from the depths of the North +Sea the hardy trawlers have dredged hundreds, aye thousands, of mammoth +teeth in company with soles and turbot. If, then, the mammoth originated +in western Europe, and not in that great graveyard of fossil elephants, +northern India, eastward he went spreading over all Europe north of the +Pyrenees and Alps, save only Scandinavia, whose glaciers offered no +attractions, scattering his bones abundantly by the wayside to serve as +marvels for future ages. Strange indeed have been some of the tales to +which these and other elephantine remains have given rise when they came +to light in the good old days when knowledge of anatomy was small and +credulity was great. The least absurd theory concerning them was that +they were the bones of the elephants which Hannibal brought from Africa. +Occasionally they were brought forward as irrefutable evidences of the +deluge; but usually they figured as the bones of giants, the most famous +of them being known as Teutobochus, King of the Cimbri, a lusty warrior +said to have had a height of nineteen feet. Somewhat smaller, but still +of respectable height, fourteen feet, was "Littell Johne" of Scotland, +whereof Hector Boece wrote, concluding, in a moralizing tone, "Be quilk +(which) it appears how extravegant and squaire pepill grew in oure +regioun afore they were effeminat with lust and intemperance of mouth." +More than this, these bones have been venerated in Greece and Rome as +the remains of pagan heroes, and later on worshipped as relics of +Christian saints. Did not the church of Valencia possess an elephant +tooth which did duty as that of St. Christopher, and, so late as 1789, +was not a thigh-bone, figuring as the arm-bone of a saint, carried in +procession through the streets in order to bring rain? + +Out of Europe eastward into Asia the mammoth took his way, and having +peopled that vast region, took advantage of a land connection then +existing between Asia and North America and walked over into Alaska, in +company with the forerunners of the bison and the ancestors of the +mountain sheep and Alaskan brown bear. Still eastward and southward he +went, until he came to the Atlantic coast, the latitude of southern New +York roughly marking the southern boundary of the broad domain over +which the mammoth roamed undisturbed.[15] Not that of necessity all this +vast area was occupied at one time; but this was the range of the +mammoth during Pleistocene time, for over all this region his bones and +teeth are found in greater or less abundance and in varying conditions +of preservation. In regions like parts of Siberia and Alaska, where the +bones are entombed in a wet and cold, often icy, soil, the bones and +tusks are almost as perfectly preserved as though they had been +deposited but a score of years ago, while remains so situated that they +have been subjected to varying conditions of dryness and moisture are +always in a fragmentary state. As previously noted, several more or less +entire carcasses of the mammoth have been discovered in Siberia, only to +be lost; and, while no entire animal has so far been found in Alaska, +some day one may yet come to light. That there is some possibility of +this is shown by the discovery, recorded by Mr. Dall, of the partial +skeleton of a mammoth in the bank of the Yukon with some of the fat +still present, and although this had been partially converted into +adipocere, it was fresh enough to be used by the natives for greasing, +not their boots, but their boats. And up to the present time this is the +nearest approach to finding a live mammoth in Alaska. + +[15] _This must be taken as a very general statement, as the distinction +between and habitats of Elephas primigenius and Elephas columbi, the +southern mammoth, are not satisfactorily determined; moreover, the two +species overlap through a wide area of the West and Northwest._ + +As to why the mammoth became extinct, we _know_ absolutely nothing, +although various theories, some much more ingenious than plausible, +have been advanced to account for their extermination--they perished of +starvation; they were overtaken by floods on their supposed migrations +and drowned in detachments; they fell through the ice, equally in +detachments, and were swept out to sea. But all we can safely say is +that long ages ago the last one perished off the face of the earth. +Strange it is, too, that these mighty beasts, whose bulk was ample to +protect them against four-footed foes, and whose woolly coat was proof +against the cold, should have utterly vanished. They ranged from England +eastward to New York, almost around the world; from the Alps to the +Arctic Ocean; and in such numbers that to-day their tusks are articles +of commerce, and fossil ivory has its price current as well as wheat. +Mr. Boyd Dawkins thinks that the mammoth was actually exterminated by +early man, but, even granting that this might be true for southern and +western Europe, it could not be true of the herds that inhabited the +wastes of Siberia, or of the thousands that flourished in Alaska and the +western United States. So far as man is concerned, the mammoth might +still be living in these localities, where, before the discovery of gold +drew thousands of miners to Alaska, there were vast stretches of +wilderness wholly untrodden by the foot of man. Neither could this +theory account for the disappearance of the mastodon from North America, +where that animal covered so vast a stretch of territory that man, +unaided by nature, could have made little impression on its numbers. +That many were swept out to sea by the flooded rivers of Siberia is +certain, for some of the low islands off the coast are said to be formed +of sand, ice, and bones of the mammoth, and thence, for hundreds of +years, have come the tusks which are sold in the market beside those of +the African and Indian elephants. + +That man was contemporary with the mammoth in southern Europe is fairly +certain, for not only are the remains of the mammoth and man's flint +weapons found together, but in a few instances some primeval Landseer +graved on slate, ivory, or reindeer antler a sketchy outline of the +beast, somewhat impressionistic perhaps, but still, like the work of a +true artist, preserving the salient features. We see the curved tusks, +the snaky trunk, and the shaggy coat that we know belonged to the +mammoth, and we may feel assured that if early man did not conquer the +clumsy creature with fire and flint, he yet gazed upon him from the safe +vantage point of some lofty tree or inaccessible rock, and then went +home to tell his wife and neighbors how the animal escaped because his +bow missed fire. That man and mammoth lived together in North America is +uncertain; so far there is no evidence to show that they did, although +the absence of such evidence is no proof that they did not. That any +live mammoth has for centuries been seen on the Alaskan tundras is +utterly improbable, and on Mr. C. H. Townsend seems to rest the +responsibility of having, though quite unintentionally, introduced the +Alaskan Live Mammoth into the columns of the daily press. It befell in +this wise: Among the varied duties of our revenue marine is that of +patrolling and exploring the shores of arctic Alaska and the waters of +the adjoining sea, and it is not so many years ago that the cutter +_Corwin_, if memory serves aright, held the record of farthest north on +the Pacific side. On one of these northern trips, to the Kotzebue Sound +region, famous for the abundance of its deposits of mammoth bones,[16] +the _Corwin_ carried Mr. Townsend, then naturalist to the United States +Fish Commission. At Cape Prince of Wales some natives came on board +bringing a few bones and tusks of the mammoth, and upon being questioned +as to whether or not any of the animals to which they pertained were +living, promptly replied that all were dead, inquiring in turn if the +white men had ever seen any, and if they knew how these animals, so +vastly larger than a reindeer, looked. + +[16] _Elephant Point, at the mouth of the Buckland River, is so named +from the numbers of mammoth bones which have accumulated there._ + +Fortunately, or unfortunately, there was on board a text-book of geology +containing the well-known cut of the St. Petersburg mammoth, and this +was brought forth, greatly to the edification of the natives, who were +delighted at recognizing the curved tusks and the bones they knew so +well. Next the natives wished to know what the outside of the creature +looked like, and as Mr. Townsend had been at Ward's establishment in +Rochester when the first copy of the Stuttgart restoration was made, he +rose to the emergency, and made a sketch. This was taken ashore, +together with a copy of the cut of the skeleton that was laboriously +made by an Innuit sprawled out at full length on the deck. Now the +Innuits, as Mr. Townsend tells us, are great gadabouts, making long +sledge journeys in winter and equally long trips by boat in summer, +while each season they hold a regular fair on Kotzebue Sound, where a +thousand or two natives gather to barter and gossip. On these journeys +and at these gatherings the sketches were no doubt passed about, copied, +and recopied, until a large number of Innuits had become well acquainted +with the appearance of the mammoth, a knowledge that naturally they were +well pleased to display to any white visitors. Also, like the Celt, the +Alaskan native delights to give a "soft answer," and is always ready to +furnish the kind of information desired. Thus in due time the newspaper +man learned that the Alaskans could make pictures of the mammoth, and +that they had some knowledge of its size and habits; so with inference +and logic quite as good as that of the Tungusian peasant, the reporter +came to the conclusion that somewhere in the frozen wilderness the last +survivor of the mammoths must still be at large. And so, starting on the +Pacific coast, the Live Mammoth story wandered from paper to paper, +until it had spread throughout the length and breadth of the United +States, when it was captured by Mr. Tukeman, who with much artistic +color and some realistic touches, transferred it to _McClure's +Magazine_, and--unfortunately for the officials thereof--to the +Smithsonian Institution. + +And now, once for all, it may be said that _there is no mounted mammoth_ +to awe the visitor to the national collections or to any other; and yet +there seems no good and conclusive reason why there should not be. True, +there are no live mammoths to be had at any price; neither are their +carcasses to be had on demand; still there is good reason to believe +that a much smaller sum than that said to have been paid by Mr. Conradi +for the mammoth which is _not_ in the Smithsonian Institution, would +place one there.[17] It probably could not be done in one year; it might +not be possible in five years; but should any man of means wish to +secure enduring fame by showing the world the mammoth as it stood in +life, a hundred centuries ago, before the dawn of even tradition, he +could probably accomplish the result by the expenditure of a far less +sum than it would cost to participate in an international yacht race. + +[17] _Since these lines were written another fine example of the Mammoth +has been discovered in Siberia and even now (Oct., 1901) an expedition +is on its way to secure the skin and skeleton for the Academy of Natural +Sciences at St. Petersburg._ + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_The mounted skeleton of the mammoth in the museum of the Chicago +Academy of Science is still the only one on exhibition in the United +States; this specimen is probably the Southern Mammoth, Elephas columbi, +a species, or race, characterized by its great size and the coarse +structure of the teeth. Remains of the mammoth are common enough but, +save in Alaska, they are usually in a poor state of preservation or +consist of isolated bones or teeth. A great many skeletons of mammoth +have been found by gold miners in Alaska, and with proper care some of +these could undoubtedly have been secured. Naturally, however, the +miners do not feel like taking the time and trouble to exhume bones +whose value is uncertain, while the cost of transportation precludes the +bringing out of many specimens._ + +_Some reports of mammoths have been based on the bones of whales, +including a skull that was figured in the daily papers._ + +_Almost every museum has on exhibition teeth of the mammoth, and there +is a skull, though from a small individual, of the Southern Mammoth in +the American Museum of Natural History, New York._ + +_The tusk obtained by Mr. Beach and mentioned in the text still holds +the record for mammoth tusks. The greatest development of tusks +occurred in Elephas ganesa, a species found in Pliocene deposits of the +Siwalik Hills, India. This species appears not to have exceeded the +existing elephant in bulk, but the tusks are twelve feet nine inches +long, and two feet two inches in circumference. How the animal ever +carried them is a mystery, both on account of their size and their +enormous leverage. As for teeth, an upper grinder of Elephas columbi in +the United States National Museum is ten and one-half inches high, nine +inches wide, the grinding face being eight by five inches. This tooth, +which is unusually perfect, retaining the outer covering of cement, came +from Afton, Indian Territory, and weighs a little over fifteen pounds. +The lower tooth, shown in Fig. 38, is twelve inches long, and the +grinding face is nine by three and one-half inches; this is also from +Elephas columbi. Grinders of the Northern Mammoth are smaller, and the +plates of enamel thinner, and closer to one another. Mr. F. E. Andrews, +of Gunsight, Texas, reports having found a femur, or thigh-bone five +feet four inches long, and a humerus measuring four feet three inches, +these being the largest bones on record indicating an animal fourteen +feet high._ + +_There is a vast amount of literature relating to the mammoth, some of +it very untrustworthy. A list of all discoveries of specimens in the +flesh is given by Nordenskiold in "The Voyage of the Vega" and "The +Mammoth and the Flood" by Sir Henry Howorth, is a mine of information. +Mr. Townsend's "Alaska Live-Mammoth Story" may be found in "Forest and +Stream" for August 14, 1897._ + +[Illustration: Fig. 37.--The Mammoth as Engraved by a Primitive Artist +on a Piece of Mammoth Tusk.] + + + + +XI + +THE MASTODON + + "_... who shall place + A limit to the giant's unchained strength?_" + + +The name mastodon is given to a number of species of fossil elephants +differing from the true elephants, of which the mammoth is an example, +in the structure of the teeth. In the mastodons the crown, or grinding +face of the tooth, is formed by more or less regular /\-shaped cross +ridges, covered with enamel, while in the elephants the enamel takes the +form of narrow, pocket-shaped plates, set upright in the body of the +tooth. Moreover, in the mastodons the roots of the teeth are long +prongs, while in the elephants the roots are small and irregular. A +glance at the cuts will show these distinctions better than they can be +explained by words. Back in the past, however, we meet, as we should if +there is any truth in the theory of evolution, with elephants having an +intermediate pattern of teeth. + +[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Tooth of Mastodon and of Mammoth.] + +There is usually, or at least often, another point of difference between +elephants and mastodons, for many of the latter not only had tusks in +the upper, but in the lower jaw, and these are never found in any of the +true elephants. The lower tusks are longer and larger in the earlier +species of mastodon than in those of more recent age and in the latest +species, the common American mastodon, the little lower tusks were +usually shed early in life. These afford some hints of the relationships +of the mastodon; for in Europe are found remains of a huge beast well +called Dinotherium, or terrible animal, which possessed lower tusks +only, and these, instead of sticking out from the jaw are bent directly +downwards. No perfect skull of this creature has yet been found, but it +is believed to have had a short trunk. For a long time nothing but the +skull was known, and some naturalists thought the animal to have been a +gigantic manatee, or sea cow, and that the tusks were used for tearing +food from the bottom of rivers and for anchoring the animal to the bank, +just as the walrus uses his tusks for digging clams and climbing out +upon the ice. In the first restorations of Dinotherium it is represented +lying amidst reeds, the feet concealed from view, the head alone +visible, but now it is pictured as standing erect, for the discovery of +massive leg-bones has definitely settled the question as to whether it +did or did not have limbs. + +There is another hint of relationship in the upper tusks of the earlier +mastodons, and this is the presence of a band of enamel running down +each tusk. In all gnawing animals the front, cutting teeth are formed of +soft dentine, or ivory, faced with a plate of enamel, just as the blade +of a chisel or plane is formed of a plate of tempered steel backed with +soft iron; the object of this being the same in both tooth and chisel, +to keep the edge sharp by wearing away the softer material. In the case +of the chisel this is done by a man with a grindstone, but with the +tooth it is performed automatically and more pleasantly by the gnawing +of food. In the mastodon and elephant the tusks, which are the +representatives of the cutting teeth of rodents, are wide apart, and of +course do not gnaw anything, but the presence of these enamel bands +hints at a time when they and their owner were smaller and differently +shaped, and the teeth were used for cutting. Thus, great though the +disparity of size may be, there is a suggestion that through the +mastodon the elephant is distantly related to the mouse, and that, could +we trace their respective pedigrees far enough, we might find a common +ancestor. + +This presence of structures that are apparently of no use, often worse +than useless, is regarded as the survival of characters that once served +some good purpose, like the familiar buttons on the sleeve or at the +back of a man's coat, or the bows and ruffles on a woman's dress. We +are told that these are put on "to make the dress look pretty," but the +student regards the bows as vestiges of the time when there were no +buttons and hooks and eyes had not been invented, and dresses were tied +together with strings or ribbons. As for ruffles, they took the place of +flounces, and flounces are vestiges of the time when a young woman wore +the greater part of her wardrobe on her back, putting on one dress above +another, the bottoms of the skirts showing like so many flounces. So +buttons, ruffles, and the vermiform appendix of which we hear so much +all fall in the category of vestigial structures. + +Where the mastodons originated, we know not: Senor Ameghino thinks their +ancestors are to be found in Patagonia, and he is very probably wrong; +Professor Cope thought they came from Asia, and he is probably right; or +they may have immigrated from the convenient Antarctica, which is called +up to account for various facts in the distribution of animals.[18] + +[18] _During the past year, 1901, Mr. C. W. Andrews of the British +Museum has discovered in Egypt a small and primitive species of +mastodon, also the remains of another animal which he thinks may be the +long sought ancestor of the elephant family, which includes the mammoth +and mastodon._ + +Neither do we at present know just how many species of mastodons there +may have been in the Western Hemisphere, for most of them are known from +scattered teeth, single jaws, and odd bones, so that we cannot tell just +what differences may be due to sex or individual variation. It is +certain, however, that several distinct kinds, or species, have +inhabited various parts of North America, while remains of others occur +in South America. _The_ mastodon, however, the one most recent in point +of time, and the best known because its remains are scattered far and +wide over pretty much the length and breadth of the United States, and +are found also in southern and western Canada, is the well-named +_Mastodon americanus_,[19] and unless otherwise specified this alone +will be meant when the name mastodon is used. In some localities the +mastodon seems to have abounded, but between the Hudson and Connecticut +Rivers indications of its former presence are rare, and east of that +they are practically wanting. The best preserved specimens come from +Ulster and Orange Counties, New York, for these seem to have furnished +the animal with the best facilities for getting mired. Just west of the +Catskills, parallel with the valley of the Hudson, is a series of +meadows, bogs, and pools marking the sites of swamps that came into +existence after the recession of the mighty ice-sheet that long covered +eastern North America, and in these many a mastodon, seeking for food or +water, or merely wallowing in the mud, stuck fast and perished +miserably. And here to-day the spade of the farmer as he sinks a ditch +to drain what is left of some beaver pond of bygone days, strikes some +bone as brown and rugged as a root, so like a piece of water-soaked wood +that nine times out of ten it is taken for a fragment of tree-trunk. + +[19] _This has also been called giganteus and ohioticus, but the name +americanus claims priority, and should therefore be used._ + +The first notice of the mastodon in North America goes back to 1712, and +is found in a letter from Cotton Mather to Dr. Woodward (of England?) +written at Boston on November 17th, in which he speaks of a large work +in manuscript entitled _Biblia Americana_, and gives as a sample a note +on the passage in Genesis (VI. 4) in which we read that "there were +giants in the earth in those days." We are told that this is confirmed +by "the bones and teeth of some large animal found lately in Albany, in +New England, which for some reason he thinks to be human; particularly a +tooth brought from the place where it was found to New York in 1705, +being a very large grinder, weighing four pounds and three quarters; +with a bone supposed to be a thigh-bone, seventeen feet long," the total +length of the body being taken as seventy-five feet. Thus bones of the +mastodon, as well as those of the mammoth, have done duty as those of +giants. + +And as the first mastodon remains recorded from North America came from +the region west of the Hudson, so the first fairly complete skeleton +also came from that locality, secured at a very considerable outlay of +money and a still more considerable expenditure of labor by the +exertions of C. W. Peale. This specimen was described at some length by +Rembrandt Peale in a privately printed pamphlet, now unfortunately +rare, and described in some respects better than has been done by any +subsequent writer, since the points of difference between various parts +of the mastodon and elephant were clearly pointed out. This skeleton was +exhibited in London, and afterwards at Peale's Museum in Philadelphia +where, with much other valuable material, it was destroyed by fire. + +Struck by the evident crushing power of the great ridged molars, Peale +was led to believe that the mastodon was a creature of carnivorous +habits, and so described it, but this error is excusable, the more that +to this day, when the mastodon is well known, and its description +published time and again in the daily papers, finders of the teeth often +consider them as belonging to some huge beast of prey. + +Since the time of Peale several fine specimens have been taken from +Ulster and Orange Counties, among them the well-known "Warren Mastodon," +and there is not the slightest doubt that many more will be recovered +from the meadows, swamps, and pond holes of these two counties. + +[Illustration: Fig. 39.--The Missourium of Koch, from a Tracing of the +Figure Illustrating Koch's Description.] + +The next mastodon to appear on the scene was the so-called Missourium of +Albert Koch, which he constructed somewhat as he did the Hydrarchus (see +p. 61) of several individuals pieced together, thus forming a skeleton +that was a monster in more ways than one. To heighten the effect, the +curved tusks were so placed that they stood out at right angles to the +sides of the head, like the swords upon the axles of ancient war +chariots. Like Peale's specimen this was exhibited in London, and there +it still remains, for, stripped of its superfluous bones, and remounted, +it may now be seen in the British Museum. + +Many a mastodon has come to light since the time of Koch, for while it +is commonly supposed that remains of the animal are great rarities, as a +matter of fact they are quite common, and it may safely be said that +during the seasons of ditching, draining, and well-digging not a week +passes without one or more mastodons being unearthed. Not that these are +complete skeletons, very far from it, the majority of finds are +scattered teeth, crumbling tusks, or massive leg-bones, but still the +mastodon is far commoner in the museums of this country than is the +African elephant, for at the present date there are eleven of the former +to one of the latter, the single skeleton of African elephant being that +of Jumbo in the American Museum of Natural History. If one may judge by +the abundance of bones, mastodons must have been very numerous in some +favored localities such as parts of Michigan, Florida, and Missouri and +about Big Bone Lick, Ky. Perhaps the most noteworthy of all deposits is +that at Kimmswick, about twenty miles south of St. Louis, where in a +limited area Mr. L. W. Beehler has exhumed bones representing several +hundred individuals, varying in size from a mere baby mastodon up to the +great tusker whose wornout teeth proclaim that he had reached the limit +of even mastodonic old age. The spot where this remarkable deposit was +found is at the foot of a bluff near the junction of two little streams, +and it seems probable that in the days when these were larger the spring +floods swept down the bodies of animals that had perished during the +winter to ground in an eddy beneath the bluff. Or as the place abounds +in springs of sulphur and salt water it may be that this was where the +animals assembled during cold weather, just as the moas are believed to +have gathered in the swamps of New Zealand, and here the weaker died and +left their bones. + +The mastodon must have looked very much like any other elephant, though +a little shorter in the legs and somewhat more heavily built than either +of the living species, while the head was a trifle flatter and the jaw +decidedly longer. The tusks are a variable quantity, sometimes merely +bowing outwards, often curving upwards to form a half circle; they were +never so long as the largest mammoth tusks, but to make up for this they +were a shade stouter for their length. As the mastodon ranged well to +the north it is fair to suppose that he may have been covered with long +hair, a supposition that seems to be borne out by the discovery, noted +by Rembrandt Peale, of a mass of long, coarse, woolly hair buried in one +of the swamps of Ulster County, New York. And with these facts in mind, +aided by photographs of various skeletons of mastodons, Mr. Gleeson +made the restoration which accompanies this chapter. + +[Illustration: Fig. 40.--The Mastodon. _From a drawing by J. M. +Gleeson._] + +As for the size of the mastodon, this, like that of the mammoth, is +popularly much over-estimated, and it is more than doubtful if any +attained the height of a full-grown African elephant. The largest femur, +or thigh-bone, that has come under the writer's notice was one he +measured as it lay in the earth at Kimmswick, and this was just four +feet long, three inches shorter than the thigh-bone of Jumbo. Several of +the largest thigh-bones measured show so striking an unanimity in size, +between 46 and 47 inches in length, that we may be pretty sure they +represent the average old "bull" mastodon, and if we say that these +animals stood ten feet high we are probably doing them full justice. An +occasional tusk reaches a length of ten feet, but seven or eight is the +usual size, with a diameter of as many inches, and this is no larger +than the tusks of the African elephant would grow if they had a chance. +It is painful to be obliged to scale down the mastodon as we have just +done the mammoth, but if any reader knows of specimens larger than those +noted, he should by all means publish their measurements.[20] + +[20] _As skeletons are sometimes mounted, they stand a full foot or more +higher at the shoulders than the animal stood in life, this being caused +by raising the body until the shoulder-blades are far below the tips of +the vertebrae, a position they never assume in life._ + +The disappearance of the mastodon is as difficult to account for as that +of the mammoth, and, as will be noted, there is absolutely no evidence +to show that man had any hand in it. Neither can it be ascribed to +change of climate, for the mastodon, as indicated by the wide +distribution of its bones, was apparently adapted to a great diversity +of climates, and was as much at home amid the cool swamps of Michigan +and New York as on the warm savannas of Florida and Louisiana. Certainly +the much used, and abused, glacial epoch cannot be held accountable for +the extermination of the creature, for the mastodon came into New York +after the recession of the great ice-sheet, and tarried to so late a +date that bones buried in the swamps retain much of their animal +matter. So recent, comparatively speaking, has been the disappearance of +the mastodon, and so fresh-looking are some of its bones, that Thomas +Jefferson thought in his day that it might still be living in some part +of the then unexplored Northwest. + +It is a moot question whether or not man and the mastodon were +contemporaries in North America, and while many there be who, like the +writer of these lines, believe that this was the case, an expression of +belief is not a demonstration of fact. The best that can be said is that +there are scattered bits of testimony, slight though they are, which +seem to point that way, but no one so strong by itself that it could not +be shaken by sharp cross-questioning and enable man to prove an alibi in +a trial by jury. For example, in the great bone deposit at Kimmswick, +Mo., Mr. Beehler found a flint arrowhead, but this may have lain just +over the bone-bearing layer, or have got in by some accident in +excavating. How easily a mistake may be made is shown by the report sent +to the United States National Museum of many arrowheads associated with +mastodon bones in a spring at Afton, Indian Territory. This spring was +investigated, and a few mastodon bones and flint arrowheads were found, +but the latter were in a stratum just above the bones, although this was +overlooked by the first diggers.[21] Koch reported finding charcoal and +arrowheads so associated with mastodon bones that he inferred the animal +to have been destroyed by fire and arrows after it became mired. It has +been said that Koch could have had no object in disseminating this +report, and hence that it may be credited, but he had just as much +interest in doing this as he did in fabricating the Hydrarchus and the +Missourium, and his testimony is not to be considered seriously. It +seems to be with the mastodon much as it is with the sea-serpent; the +latter never appears to a naturalist, remains of the former are never +found by a trained observer associated with indications of the presence +of man. Perhaps an exception should be made in the case of Professor J. +M. Clarke, who found fragments of charcoal in a deposit of muck under +some bones of mastodon. + +[21] _This locality has just been carefully investigated by Mr. W. H. +Holmes of the United States National Museum who found bones of the +mastodon and Southern Mammoth associated with arrowheads. But he also +found fresh bones of bison, horse, and wolf, showing that these and the +arrowheads had simply sunk to the level of the older deposit._ + +We may pass by the so-called "Elephant Mound," which to the eye of an +unimaginative observer looks as if it might have been intended for any +one of several beasts; also, with bated breath and due respect for the +bitter controversy waged over them, pass we by the elephant pipes. There +remains, then, not a bit of man's handiwork, not a piece of pottery, +engraved stone, or scratched bone that can _unhesitatingly_ be said to +have been wrought into the shape of an elephant before the coming of the +white man. True, there is "The Lenape Stone," found near Doyleston, Pa., +in 1872, a gorget graven on one side with the representation of men +attacking an elephant, while the other bears a number of figures of +various animals. The good faith of the finder of this stone is +unimpeachable, but it is a curious fact that, while this gorget is +elaborately decorated on both sides, no similar stone, out of all that +have been found, bears any image whatsoever. On the other hand, if not +made by the aborigines, who made it, why was it made, and why did nine +years elapse between the discovery of the first and second portions of +the broken ornament? These are questions the reader may decide for +himself; the author will only say that to his mind the drawing is too +elaborate, and depicts entirely too much to have been made by a +primitive artist. A much better bit of testimony seems to be presented +by a fragment of Fulgur shell found near Hollyoak, Del., and now in the +United States National Museum, which bears a very rudely scratched image +of an animal that may have been intended for a mastodon or a bison. This +piece of shell is undeniably old, but there is, unfortunately, the +uncertainty just mentioned as to the animal depicted. The familiar +legend of the Big Buffalo that destroyed animals and men and defied even +the lightnings of the Great Spirit has been thought by some to have +originated in a tradition of the mastodon handed down from ancient +times; but why consider that the mastodon is meant? Why not a legendary +bison that has increased with years of story-telling? And so the +co-existence of man and mastodon must rest as a case of not proven, +although there is a strong probability that the two did live together in +the dim ages of the past, and some day the evidence may come to light +that will prove it beyond a peradventure. If scientific men are charged +with obstinacy and unwarranted incredulity in declining to accept the +testimony so far presented, it must be remembered that the evidence as +to the existence of the sea serpent is far stronger, since it rests on +the testimony of eye-witnesses, and yet the creature himself has never +been seen by a trained observer, nor has any specimen, not a scale, a +tooth, or a bone, ever made its way into any museum. + + +_REFERENCES_ + +_There are at least eleven mounted skeletons of the Mastodon in the +United States, and the writer trusts he may be pardoned for mentioning +only those which are most accessible. These are in the American Museum +of Natural History, New York; the State Museum, Albany, N. Y.; Field +Columbian Museum, Chicago; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg; Museum of +Comparative Zooelogy, Cambridge, Mass. There is no mounted skeleton in +the United States National Museum, nor has there ever been._ + +_The heaviest pair of tusks is in the possession of T. O. Tuttle, +Seneca, Mich., and they are nine and one-half inches in diameter, and a +little over eight feet long; very few tusks, however, reach eight inches +in diameter. The thigh-bone of an old male mastodon measures from +forty-five to forty-six and one-half inches long, the humerus from +thirty-five to forty inches. The height of the mounted skeleton is of +little value as an indication of size, since it depends so much upon the +manner in which the skeleton is mounted. The grinders of the mastodon +have three cross ridges, save the last, which has four, and a final +elevation, or heel. This does not apply to the teeth of very young +animals. The presence or absence of the last grinder will show whether +or not the animal is of full age and size, while the amount of wear +indicates the comparative age of the specimen._ + +_The skeleton of the "Warren Mastodon" is described at length by Dr. J. +C. Warren, in a quarto volume entitled "Mastodon Giganteus." There is +much information in a little book by J. P. MacLean, "Mastodon, Mammoth, +and Man," but the reader must not accept all its statements +unhesitatingly. The first volume, 1887, of the New Scribner's Magazine +contains an article on "American Elephant Myths," by Professor W. B. +Scott, but he is under an erroneous impression regarding the size of the +mastodon, and photographs of the Maya carvings show that their +resemblance to elephants has been exaggerated in the wood cuts. The +story of the Lenape Stone is told at length by H. C. Mercer in "The +Lenape Stone, or the Indian and the Mammoth."_ + +[Illustration: Fig. 41.--The Lenape Stone, Reduced.] + + + + +XII + +WHY DO ANIMALS BECOME EXTINCT? + + "_And Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp + Abode his destined Hour and went his way._" + + +It is often asked "why do animals become extinct?" but the question is +one to which it is impossible to give a comprehensive and satisfactory +reply; this chapter does not pretend to do so, merely to present a few +aspects of this complicated, many-sided problem. + +In very many cases it may be said that actual extermination has not +taken place, but that in the course of evolution one species has passed +into another; species may have been lost, but the race, or phylum +endures, just as in the growth of a tree, the twigs and branches of the +sapling disappear, while the tree, as a whole, grows onward and upward. +This is what we see in the horse, which is the living representative of +an unbroken line reaching back to the little Eocene Hyracothere. So in +a general way it may be said that much of what at the first glance we +might term extinction is really the replacement of one set of animals by +another better adapted to surrounding conditions. + +Again, there are many cases of animals, and particularly of large +animals, so peculiar in their make up, so very obviously adapted to +their own special surroundings that it requires little imagination to +see that it would have been a difficult matter for them to have +responded to even a slight change in the world about them. Such great +and necessarily sluggish brutes as Brontosaurus and Diplodocus, with +their tons of flesh, small heads, and feeble teeth, were obviously +reared in easy circumstances, and unfitted to succeed in any strenuous +struggle for existence. Stegosaurus, with his bizarre array of plates +and spines, and huge-headed Triceratops, had evidently carried +specialization to an extreme, while in turn the carnivorous forms must +have required an abundant supply of slow and easily captured prey. + +Coming down to a more recent epoch, when the big Titanotheres +flourished, it is easy to see from a glance at their large, simple teeth +that these beasts needed an ample provision of coarse vegetation, and as +they seem never to have spread far beyond their birthplace, climatic +change, modifying even a comparatively limited area, would suffice to +sweep them out of existence. To use the epitaph proposed by Professor +Marsh for the tombstone of one of the Dinosaurs, many a beast might say, +"I, and my race perished of over specialization." To revert to the horse +it will be remembered that this very fate is believed to have overtaken +those almost horses the European Hippotheres; they reached a point where +no further progress was possible, and fell by the wayside. + +There is, however, still another class of cases where species, families, +orders, even, seem to have passed out of existence without sufficient +cause. Those great marine reptiles, the Ichthyosaurs, of Europe, the +Plesiosaurs and Mosasaurs, of our own continent, seem to have been just +as well adapted to an aquatic life as the whales, and even better than +the seals, and we can see no reason why Columbus should not have found +these creatures still disporting themselves in the Gulf of Mexico. The +best we can do is to fall back on an unknown "law of progress," and say +that the trend of life is toward the replacement of large, lower animals +by those smaller and intellectually higher. + +But _why_ there should be an allotted course to any group of animals, +why some species come to an end when they are seemingly as well fitted +to endure as others now living, we do not know, and if we say that a +time comes when the germ-plasm is incapable of further subdivision, we +merely express our ignorance in an unnecessary number of words. The +mammoth and mastodon have already been cited as instances of animals +that have unaccountably become extinct, and these examples are chosen +from among many on account of their striking nature. The great ground +sloths, the Mylodons, Megatheres, and their allies, are another case in +point. At one period or another they reached from Oregon to Virginia, +Florida, and Patagonia, though it is not claimed that they covered all +this area at one time. And, while it may be freely admitted that in +some portions of their range they may have been extirpated by a change +in food-supply, due in turn to a change in climate, it seems +preposterous to claim that there was not at all times, somewhere in this +vast expanse of territory, a climate mild enough and a food-supply large +enough for the support of even these huge, sluggish creatures. We may +evoke the aid of primitive man to account for the disappearance of this +race of giants, and we know that the two were coeval in Patagonia, where +the sloths seem to have played the role of domesticated animals, but +again it seems incredible that early man, with his flint-tipped spears +and arrows, should have been able to slay even such slow beasts as these +to the very last individual. + +Of course, in modern times man has directly exterminated many animals, +while by the introduction of dogs, cats, pigs, and goats he has +indirectly not only thinned the ranks of animals, but destroyed plant +life on an enormous scale. But in the past man's capabilities for harm +were infinitely less than now, while of course the greatest changes took +place before man even existed, so that, while he is responsible for the +great changes that have taken place in the world's flora and fauna +during recent times, his influence, as a whole, has been insignificant. +Thus, while man exterminated the great northern sea-cow, Rytina, and +Pallas's cormorant on the Commander Islands, these animals were already +restricted to this circumscribed area[22] by natural causes, so that man +but finished what nature had begun. The extermination of the great auk +in European waters was somewhat similar. There is, however, this +unfortunate difference between extermination wrought by man and that +brought about by natural causes: the extermination of species by nature +is ordinarily slow, and the place of one is taken by another, while the +destruction wrought by man is rapid, and the gaps he creates remain +unfilled. + +[22] _It is possible that the cormorant may always have been confined to +this one spot, but this is probably not the case with the sea-cow._ + +Not so very long ago it was customary to account for changes in the past +life of the globe by earthquakes, volcanic outbursts, or cataclysms of +such appalling magnitude that the whole face of nature was changed, and +entire races of living beings swept out of existence at once. But it is +now generally conceded that while catastrophes have occurred, yet, vast +as they may have been, their effects were comparatively local, and, +while the life of a limited region may have been ruthlessly blotted out, +life as a whole was but little affected. The eruption of Krakatoa shook +the earth to its centre and was felt for hundreds of miles around, yet, +while it caused the death of thousands of living beings, it remains to +be shown that it produced any effect on the life of the region taken in +its entirety. + +Changes in the life of the globe have been in the main slow and gradual, +and in response to correspondingly slow changes in the level of portions +of the earth's crust, with their far-reaching effects on temperature, +climate, and vegetation. Animals that were what is termed plastic kept +pace with the altering conditions about them and became modified, too, +while those that could not adapt themselves to their surroundings died +out. + +How slowly changes may take place is shown by the occurrence of a +depression in the Isthmus of Panama, in comparatively recent geologic +time, permitting free communication between the Atlantic and Pacific, a +sort of natural inter-oceanic canal. And yet the alterations wrought by +this were, so to speak, superficial, affecting only some species of +shore fishes and invertebrates, having no influence on the animals of +the deeper waters. Again, on the Pacific coast are now found a number of +shells that, as we learn from fossils, were in Pliocene time common on +both coasts of the United States, and Mr. Dall interprets this to mean +that when this continent was rising, the steeper shore on the Pacific +side permitted the shell-fish to move downward and adapt themselves to +the ever changing shore, while on the Atlantic side the drying of a wide +strip of level sea-bottom in a relatively short time exterminated a +large proportion of the less active mollusks. And in this instance +"relatively short" means positively long; for, compared to the rise of a +continent from the ocean's bed, the flow of a glacier is the rapid rush +of a mountain torrent. + +Then, too, while a tendency to vary seems to be inherent in animals, +some appear to be vastly more susceptible than others to outside +influences, to respond much more readily to any change in the world +about them. In fact, Professor Cook has recently suggested that the +inborn tendency to variation is sufficient in itself to account for +evolution, this tendency being either repressed or stimulated as +external conditions are stable or variable. + +The more uniform the surrounding conditions, and the simpler the animal, +the smaller is the liability to change, and some animals that dwell in +the depths of the ocean, where light and temperature vary little, if +any, remain at a standstill for long periods of time. + +The genus Lingula, a small shell, traces its ancestry back nearly to the +base of the Ordovician system of rocks, an almost inconceivable lapse of +time, while one species of brachiopod shell endures unchanged from the +Trenton Limestone to the Lower Carboniferous. In the first case one +species has been replaced by another, so that the shell of to-day is not +exactly like its very remote ancestor, but that the type of shell +should have remained unchanged when so many other animals have arisen, +flourished for a time, and perished, means that there was slight +tendency to variation, and that the surrounding conditions were uniform. +Says Professor Brooks, speaking of Lingula: "The everlasting hills are +the type of venerable antiquity; but Lingula has seen the continents +grow up, and has maintained its integrity unmoved by the convulsions +which have given the crust of the earth its present form." + +Many instances of sudden but local extermination might be adduced, but +among them that of the tile-fish is perhaps the most striking. This +fish, belonging to a tropical family having its headquarters in the Gulf +of Mexico, was discovered in 1879 in moderately deep water to the +southward of Massachusetts and on the edge of the Gulf Stream, where it +was taken in considerable numbers. In the spring of 1882 vessels +arriving at New York reported having passed through great numbers of +dead and dying fishes, the water being thickly dotted with them for +miles. From samples brought in, it was found that the majority of these +were tile-fish, while from the reports of various vessels it was shown +that the area covered by dead fish amounted to somewhere between 5,000 +and 7,500 square miles, and the total number of dead was estimated at +not far from _a billion_. This enormous and widespread destruction is +believed to have been caused by an unwonted duration of northerly and +easterly winds, which drove the cold arctic current inshore and +southwards, chilling the warm belt in which the tile-fish resided and +killing all in that locality. It was thought possible that the entire +race might have been destroyed, but, while none were taken for many +years, in 1899 and in 1900 a number were caught, showing that the +species was beginning to reoccupy the waters from which it had been +driven years before. + +The effect of any great fall in temperature on animals specially adapted +to a warm climate is also illustrated by the destruction of the Manatees +in the Sebastian River, Florida, by the winter of 1894-95, which came +very near exterminating this species. Readers may remember that this was +the winter that wrought such havoc with the blue-birds, while in the +vicinity of Washington, D. C., the fish-crows died by hundreds, if not +by thousands. + +Fishes may also be exterminated over large areas by outbursts of +poisonous gases from submarine volcanoes, or more rarely by some vast +lava flood pouring into the sea and actually cooking all living beings +in the vicinity. And in the past these outbreaks took place on a much +larger scale than now, and naturally wrought more widespread +destruction. + +A recent instance of local extermination is the total destruction of a +humming-bird, _Bellona ornata_, peculiar to the island of St. Vincent, +by the West Indian hurricane of 1898, but this is naturally extirpation +on a very small scale. + +Still, the problems of nature are so involved that while local +destruction is ordinarily of little importance, or temporary in its +effects, it may lead to the annihilation of a species by breaking a race +of animals into isolated groups, thereby leading to inbreeding and slow +decline. The European bison, now confined to a part of Lithuania and a +portion of the Caucasus, seems to be slowly but surely approaching +extinction in spite of all efforts to preserve the race, and no reason +can be assigned for this save that the small size of the herds has led +to inbreeding and general decadence. + +In other ways, too, local calamity may be sweeping in its effects, and +that is by the destruction of animals that resort to one spot during the +breeding season, like the fur-seals and some sea-birds, or pass the +winter months in great flocks or herds, as do the ducks and elk. The +supposed decimation of the Moas by severe winters has been already +discussed, and the extermination of the great auk in European waters was +indirectly due to natural causes. These birds bred on the small, almost +inaccessible island of Eldey, off the coast of Iceland, and when, +through volcanic disturbances, this islet sank into the sea, the few +birds were forced to other quarters, and as these were, unfortunately, +easily reached, the birds were slain to the last one. + +From the great local abundance of their remains, it has been thought +that the curious short-legged Pliocene rhinoceros, _Aphelops fossiger_, +was killed off in the West by blizzards when the animals were gathered +in their winter quarters, and other long-extinct animals, too, have been +found under such conditions as to suggest a similar fate. + +Among local catastrophes brought about by unusually prolonged cold may +be cited the decimation of the fur-seal herds of the Pribilof Islands in +1834 and 1859, when the breeding seals were prevented from landing by +the presence of ice-floes, and perished by thousands. Peculiar interest +is attached to this case, because the restriction of the northern +fur-seals to a few isolated, long undiscovered islands, is believed to +have been brought about by their complete extermination in other +localities by prehistoric man. Had these two seasons killed all the +seals, it would have been a reversal of the customary extermination by +man of a species reduced in numbers by nature. + +In the case of large animals another element probably played a part. The +larger the animal, the fewer young, as a rule, does it bring forth at a +birth, the longer are the intervals between births, and the slower the +growth of the young. The loss of two or three broods of sparrows or two +or three litters of rabbits makes comparatively little difference, as +the loss is soon supplied, but the death of the young of the larger and +higher mammals is a more serious matter. A factor that has probably +played an important role in the extinction of animals is the relation +that exists between various animals, and the relations that also exist +between animals and plants, so that the existence of one is dependent on +that of another. Thus no group of living beings, plants or animals, can +be affected without in some way affecting others, so that the injury or +destruction of some plant may result in serious harm to some animal. +Nearly everyone is familiar with the classic example given by Darwin of +the effect of cats on the growth of red clover. This plant is fertilized +by bumble bees only, and if the field mice, which destroy the nests of +the bees, were not kept in check by cats, or other small carnivores, +their increase would lessen the numbers of the bees and this in turn +would cause a dearth of clover. + +The yuccas present a still more wonderful example of the dependence of +plants on animals, for their existence hangs on that of a small moth +whose peculiar structure and habits bring about the fertilization of the +flower. The two probably developed side by side until their present +state of inter-dependence was reached, when the extinction of the one +would probably bring about that of the other. + +It is this inter-dependence of living things that makes the outcome of +any direct interference with the natural order of things more or less +problematical, and sometimes brings about results quite different from +what were expected or intended. + +The gamekeepers on the grouse moors of Scotland systematically killed +off all birds of prey because they caught some of the grouse, but this +is believed to have caused far more harm than good through permitting +weak and sickly birds, that would otherwise have fallen a prey to hawks, +to live and disseminate the grouse distemper. + +The destruction of sheep by coyotes led the State of California to place +a bounty on the heads of these animals, with the result that in +eighteen months the State was called upon to pay out $187,485. As a +result of the war on coyotes the animals on which they fed, notably the +rabbits, increased so enormously that in turn a bounty was put on +rabbits, the damage these animals caused the fruit-growers being greater +than the losses among sheep-owners from the depredations of coyotes. And +so, says Dr. Palmer, "In this remarkable case of legislation a large +bounty was offered by a county in the interest of fruit-growers to +counteract the effects of a State bounty expended mainly for the benefit +of sheep-owners!" + +Professor Shaler, in noting the sudden disappearance of such trees as +the gums, magnolias, and tulip poplars from the Miocene flora of Europe +has suggested that this may have been due to the attacks, for a series +of years, of some insect enemy like the gipsy moth, and the theory is +worth considering, although it must be looked upon as a possibility +rather than a probability. Still, anyone familiar with the ravages of +the gipsy moth in Massachusetts, where the insect was introduced by +accident, can readily imagine what _might_ have been the effect of some +sudden increase in the numbers of such a pest on the forests of the +past. Trees might resist the attacks of enemies and the destruction of +their leaves for two or three years, but would be destroyed by a few +additional seasons of defoliation. + +Ordinarily the abnormal increase of any insect is promptly followed by +an increase in the number of its enemies; the pest is killed off, the +destroyers die of starvation and nature's balance is struck. But if by +some accident, such as two or three consecutive seasons of wet, drought, +or cold, the natural increase of the enemies was checked, the balance of +nature would be temporarily destroyed and serious harm done. That such +accidents may occur is familiar to us by the damage wrought in Florida +and other Southern States by the unwonted severity of the winters of +1893, 1895, and 1899. + +If any group of forest trees was destroyed in the manner suggested by +Professor Shaler, the effects would be felt by various plants and +animals. In the first place, the insects that fed on these trees would +be forced to seek another source of food and would be brought into a +silent struggle with forms already in possession, while the destruction +of one set of plants would be to the advantage of those with which they +came into competition and to the disadvantage of vegetation that was +protected by the shade. Finally, these changed conditions would react in +various ways on the smaller birds and mammals, the general effect being, +to use a well-worn simile, like that of casting a stone into a quiet +pool and setting in motion ripples that sooner or later reach to every +part of the margin. + +It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that for the most part this +is purely conjectural, for from the nature of the case it is bound to be +so. But it is one of the characteristics of educated man that he wishes +to know the why and wherefore of everything, and is in a condition of +mental unhappiness until he has at least formulated some theory which +seems to harmonize with the visible facts. And from the few glimpses we +get of the extinction of animals from natural causes we must formulate a +theory to fit the continued extermination that has been taking place +ever since living beings came into the world and were pitted against one +another and against their surroundings in the silent and ceaseless +struggle for existence. + + +THE END. + + + + +INDEX + + +_The asterisk denotes that the animal or object is figured on or +opposite the page referred to._ + + + AEpyornis, egg of, 145, 148,* 147, 157 + eggs found in swamps, 148; + found floating, 148 + eggs used for bowls, 145 + origin of fable of Roc, 144, 145 + + Alaskan Live Mammoth Story, 190-193, 197 + + Anomoepus tracks, 39 + + Apteryx egg, 147 + + Archaeopteryx, description of, 77, 78 + discovery of, 77 + earliest known bird, 70 + restoration, 89* + specimens of, 70,* 88 + wing, 72,* 73 + + Archelon, a great turtle, 54 + + + Basilosaurus, 60 + See also Zeuglodon + + Beehler, L. W., 209, 213 + + Birds, always clad in feathers, 71, 127 + earliest, 70 + + Birds, first intimation of, 76 + rarity of fossil, 86, 87 + related to reptiles, 92 + wings of embryonic, 73 + with teeth, 79, 88 + + Bison, European, 231 + + Books of reference, xix, 17, 32, 47, 69, 89, 110, 137, 158, 176, + 197, 218 + + Breeding of large animals, 233 + + Brontornis, size of leg-bones, 149 + + Brontosaurus, size of bones, 96,* 97,* 109 + + Brooks, W. K., on Lingula, 229 + + Buffalo legend, 216 + + Buttons as vestigial structures, 202 + + + Carcharodon auriculatus, 66 + teeth, 66 + megalodon, 65 + estimated size, 66 + teeth, 65, 67 + + Carson City footprints, 45 + + Casts, how formed, 10, 11 + + Cats and clover, 234 + + Cephalaspis, 24* + + Ceratosaurus, habits, 106 + restoration, 106* + skull, 110* + + Changes in Nature slow, 227 + + Cheirotherium, 43 + + Chlamydosaurus, 129 + + Claosaurus. See Thespesius + + Climate, changes in western United States, 174 + + Clover and cats, 234 + + Cold, effects of, on animals, 230, 231, 233 + + Cold winters, 230 + + Collecting fossils, 17, 112-116 + + Color of large land animals, 134 + of young animals, 136 + + Covering of extinct animals sometimes indicated, 131, 132 + + Coyotes, effect of their destruction on fruit, 236 + + + Dall, W. H., theory as to extinction of mollusks, 227 + + Dinosaurs, bones of, 109, 110 + brain of, 93 + collections of, 109 + compared to marsupials, 95 + first discovered, 90 + food required by, 98 + hip-bones mistaken for shoulder-blade, 120 + Professor Marsh's epitaph for, 222 + range, 92 + recognized as new order of reptiles, 91 + related to ostrich and alligator, 91 + size of, 95, 96, 98 + tracks, ascribed to birds, 38 + + Dinotherium, 200 + + Diplodocus, estimated weight, 99 + supposed habits, 99 + + + Egg of AEpyornis, 147, 148; + Apteryx, 147; + Ostrich, 146; + Moa, 148 + + Eggs, casts of, 87 + + Elephant, size, 180 + size of tusks, 181, 182 + + Elephas ganesa, tusks, 196 + + Encrustations, 14 + + Extermination. See Extinction + + Extinction, ascribed to great convulsions, 225 + ascribed to primitive man, 188, 224 + of Dinosaurs, 221 + local, 225 + by man, 224, 225 + of Marine Reptiles, 222 + often unaccountable, 222, 223 + of Pliocene rhinoceros, 232 + sometimes evolution, 221, 226 + of Titanotheres, 222 + + + Feathers, imprints of, 76, 132 + + Fishes, abundance of, 25 + armored, 23, 24, 25, 28 + collections of, 32 + killed by cold, 230 + killed by volcanoes, 231 + + Fish-crows, killed by cold, 231 + + Flesh does not petrify, 10 + + Flightless birds, absent from Tasmania, 155 + present distribution, 154, 155 + relation between flightlessness and size, 156 + + Folds and frills, 129 + + Footprints, collections of, 47 + books on, 47 + See also under Tracks + + Fossil birds, rarity of, 86 + + Fossil man, 13 + + Fossilization a slow process, 10 + + Fossils, conditions under which they are formed, 5, 7 + collecting, 112-116 + definition of, 1 + deformation of, 16 + impressions, 2, 3 + not necessarily petrifactions, 2 + preparation of, 117-119 + why they are not more common, 5, 15, 16 + + Fowls, muscles of, 81 + + Frill of Triceratops, 102 + + Fur-seals killed by ice-floes, 233 + + + Gar pikes, destruction of, 26 + + Giant birds, reasons for distribution and flightlessness, 153 + + Giant Moa, 141 + leg compared with that of horse, 152* + + Giant Sloth, domesticated by man, 224 + struggle between, 46 + + Giant Sloth, tracks at Carson City, 46 + + Gilfort, Robert, 157 + + Great Auk, extermination of, 232 + + Grouse on Scotch moors, 235 + + + Hawkins, B. W., restorations by, 137 + + Hesperornis, description of, 80 + impressions of feathers, 132 + position of legs, 83, 84 + restoration of, 82* + + Hippotherium, 166, 167 + + Hoactzin, habits of, 74, 75* + + Horn does not petrify, 130 + + Horse, abundant in Pleistocene time, 164 + books on, 176 + of bronze age, 163, 167 + collections of fossil, 176 + development of, 167, 168,* 175 + differences between fossil and living, 163 + early domestication, 165 + evidence as to genealogy, 170-173 + extra-toed, 172, 173 + found in South America in 1530, 165 + of Julius Caesar, 172 + none found wild in historic times, 165 + Pliocene, 166 + possibility of existence in America up to the time of its + discovery, 169, 170 + primitive, 160, 161* + + Horse, sketched by primitive man, 163 + teeth of, 170 + three-toed, 166 + + Humming-bird, exterminated by hurricane, 231 + + Hydrarchus, 62* + + Hyracotherium, 160, 161,* 170, 174 + + + Ichthyosaurs, silhouettes of, 132 + + Iguanodons, found at Bernissart, 104 + + Impressions of feathers, 131 + of scales, 131 + of skin, 131 + + Inbreeding, effects of, 231, 232 + + Information, sources of, xvi + + Innuits, habits, 192 + + Interdependence of animals and plants, 234, 235, 238 + + Ivory, fossil, 2, 4, 188, 189 + + + Jaw of Mosasaur, 54* + of reptiles, 53 + + + Killing of the Mammoth, story, 177, 193 + + Kimmswick, deposit of Mastodon bones, 209 + + Knight, Charles R., restorations by, xviii, 136 + + Koch's Hydrarchus, 61, 62* + Missourium, 207,* 208 + + + Leaves, impressions of, 3, 13 + + Leg of Brontornis, 149* + + Leg of the Great Brontosaurus, 96* + of Giant Moa, 152* + position in Hesperornis, 83 + position in ducks, 84 + + Lenape Stone, 215, 216, 219* + + Life, earliest traces of, 21, 34 + + Lingula, antiquity of, 228 + Professor Brooks on, 229 + + Loricaria, 24* + + + Mammoth, adapted to a cold climate, 134 + Alaskan Live, Story, 190 + believed to live underground, 178 + bones taken for those of giants, 185 + contemporary with man, 189 + derivation of name, 178 + description, 179 + discovery of entire specimens, 183, 187 + distribution, 184, 186 + drawn by early man, 189, 197* + entire specimens obtainable, 194 + reasons for extermination, 188 + killing of the, 177 + literature on, 197 + misconception as to size, 179 + mounted skeleton, 179 + not now living, 190 + preservation of remains, 187 + skeletons in Alaska, 181, 195 + + Mammoth, in Chicago Academy of Sciences, 179 + at St. Petersburg, 183* + restoration, 176* + size, 179, 180, 181 + size of tusks, 181, 196 + teeth, 196, 199* + teeth dredged in North Sea, 184 + tusks brought into market, 188, 189 + + Man contemporary with Mammoth, 189 + fossil, 13 + of Guadeloupe, 13 + + Manatees killed by cold, 230 + + Marsh, Prof. O. C., collection of fossil horses, 176 + on Dinosaurs, 222 + on toothed birds, 79, 89 + + Mastodon, bones taken for those of giants, 205 + thought to be carnivorous, 206 + covering, 210 + description, 210 + distribution, 203, 210, 212 + extinction, 212 + literature, 218 + and man, 215, 216 + first noticed in America, 204 + origin unknown, 202 + remains abundant, 208, 209 + remains in Ulster and Orange counties, New York, 204, 206 + restoration, 210* + + Mastodon, size, 211 + skeletons on exhibition, 218 + species, 203 + teeth, 198, 199,* 218 + tusks, 199, 200 + + Mesohippus, 167 + + Mimicry, not conscious, 128 + + Missourium of Koch, 207,* 208 + + Moas, collections of, 156, 157 + contemporary with man, 143, 144 + deductions from distribution, 143 + destruction of, 143, 144 + discovery of bones, 140 + elephant-footed, 142 + feathers of, 141 + Giant, 141 + supposed food of, 142 + legends of, 139, 140 + literature, 158 + scientific names, 146 + size of, 141 + species of, 141 + + Moloch, an Australian lizard, 100* + + Mosasaurs, abundance of, in Kansas, 52 + books on, 69 + collections of, 68 + extinction of, 56 + first discovery, 50 + jaw of, 54* + + Mosasaurs, range of, 49 + restoration, 52* + size of, 49, 50 + + Mylodon tracks at Carson City, 45 + + + Names, scientific, reasons for using, xvi, xvii + + Nature, balance of, 238 + + Nuts, fossil, 11 + + + Oldest animals, 21 + vertebrates, 19, 22 + + Ostrich egg, 147 + + Over-specialization, 221, 222 + + + Peale, C. W., 205 + + Peale, Rembrandt, 205, 206 + + Pelican, mandible, 53 + + Penguins, depend on fat for warmth, 127 + feathers highly modified, 128 + swim with wings, 80 + + Petrified bodies, 10 + + Phororhacos, description of, 149 + mistaken for mammal, 149 + Patagonian bird, 148 + related to heron family, 152 + restoration, frontispiece + skull, 150, 151* + + Protohippus, 166 + + Pteraspis, 28 + + Pterichthys, 25, 28, 32* + mistaken for crab, 25 + + Pterodactyls, impressions of wings, 133 + from Kansas, 55 + wing, 72* + + Pycraft, W. P., restoration of Archaeopteryx, 89 + + + Radiolarians, 15, 17* + + Reconstruction of animals, 127, 130, 134 + + Reptiles, fasting powers of, 98 + growth throughout life, 102 + jaws, 53 + + Restorations, xviii + Archaeopteryx, 89* + Ceratosaurus, 106* + Hesperornis, 82* + Mammoth, 176* + Mastodon, 210* + Phororhacos, frontispiece + progress in, 137 + Stegosaurus, 108* + Thespesius, 90* + Triceratops, 126* + Tylosaurus, 52* + + Reversion of fancy stock, 171 + + Rhinoceros, exterminated by cold, 232 + + Roc, legend of, 144, 145 + + Rocks, thickness of sedimentary, 20 + + Ruffles on dresses, 202 + + + Schuchert, Charles, on collecting fossils, 17 + collector of Zeuglodon bones, 63 + + Seals, covering of, 128 + + Sea-serpent, belief in, 56 + possibility of existence, 57 + + Shaler, Professor, on changes in Miocene flora of Europe, 236, 237 + + Sharks, early, 31 + Great-toothed, 65 + known from spines and teeth, 29 + Port Jackson, 29 + teeth of, 69 + White, or Man-Eater, 65 + + Skeleton, basis of all restorations, 127 + best testimony of animal's relationships, 124 + information to be derived from, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127 + a problem in mechanics, 102, 124 + reconstruction of, 120 + relation of, to exterior of animal, 121, 127 + of Triceratops, 103,* 121 + + Spines and plates, 130 + + Stegosaurus, description of, 106 + restoration of, 108* + + Survival of the fittest, 173 + + + Teeth, birds with, 79 + of gnawing animals, 169, 200 + of grass-eaters, 169 + + Teeth, of horse, 170 + of mammoth, 198, 199* + of mastodon, 198, 199* + of sharks, 29, 30 + of Thespesius, 105 + + Thespesius, abundance of, 104, 105 + brain of, 93 + (Same as Claosaurus) + engulfed in quicksand, 8 + impressions of skin, 132 + restoration of, 90* + teeth of, 105 + at Yale, 109 + + Tiger, preying on reindeer, 134 + + Tile-fish, destruction of, 230 + + Titanichthys, 28, 29 + + Toothed birds, collections of, 88 + discovery of, 79 + + Townsend C. H., 190-192 + + Tracks, ascribed to birds, 38 + ascribed to giants, 45 + animals known from, 41 + collections of, 47 + of Connecticut Valley, 37 + deductions from, 44 + of Dinosaurs, 38,* 40,* 41, 47* + discovery in England and America, 37, 42 + how formed, 35, 40 + at Hastings, 44 + + Tracks, of Mylodon, 46 + of worms, 3, 33 + + Triceratops, brain, 94 + broken horn, 102 + description, 100, 101 + restoration, 126* + skeleton, 103* + + Tufa, 14 + + Tukeman, killing of the Mammoth, 177, 193 + + + Variation in animals, 228 + + Vertebrates, oldest, 22 + + Vestigial structures, 201, 202 + + Volcanic outbursts, 231, 232 + + + Webster, F. S., on destruction of gar pikes, 26 + + White, C. A., on the nature and uses of fossils, 17 + + White Shark, 65 + + Wings, 71, 72,* 73 + of embryonic birds, 73 + + Wood, fossil, 9, 10 + + Worm trails, 3, 33 + + + Yucca, fertilization, 235 + + + Zeuglodon, abundance of remains, 60 + same as Basilosaurus + description, 58, 63 + habits, 59 + + Zeuglodon, Koch's restoration, 62 + name, 58, 69 + once numerous, 60 + size, 58 + specimen of, 68 + structure of bones, 64 + teeth, 58, 69* + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Animals of the Past, by Frederic A. 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