Extinct Monsters A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life

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EXTINCT MONSTERS.




[Illustration: Plate XI.

A GIGANTIC HORNED DINOSAUR, TRICERATOPS PRORSUS.

Length about 25 feet.]




    EXTINCT MONSTERS.

    _A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE LARGER
    FORMS OF ANCIENT ANIMAL LIFE._

    BY

    REV. H. N. HUTCHINSON, B.A., F.G.S.,

    AUTHOR OF "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE EARTH,"
    AND "THE STORY OF THE HILLS."

    WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. SMIT AND OTHERS.

    _FIFTH AND CHEAPER EDITION._

    LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.

    1897.

    _All rights reserved._




     "The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the
     extravagant that there is scarcely any conception too
     extraordinary for Nature to realise."--Agassiz.




PREFACE BY DR. HENRY WOODWARD, F.R.S.

KEEPER OF GEOLOGY, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.


I have been requested by my friend Mr. Hutchinson, to express my
opinion upon the series of drawings which have been prepared by that
excellent artist of animals, Mr. Smit, for this little book entitled
"Extinct Monsters."

Many of the stories told in early days, of Giants and Dragons, may
have originated in the discovery of the limb-bones of the Mammoth, the
Rhinoceros, or other large animals, in caves, associated with heaps of
broken fragments, in which latter the ignorant peasant saw in fancy
the remains of the victims devoured at the monster's repasts.

In Louis Figuier's _World before the Deluge_ we are favoured with
several highly sensational views of extinct monsters; whilst the pen
of Dr. Kinns has furnished valuable information as to the "slimy"
nature of their blood!

The late Mr. G. Waterhouse Hawkins (formerly a lithographic artist)
was for years occupied in unauthorised restorations of various
Secondary reptiles and Tertiary mammals, and about 1853 he received
encouragement from Professor Owen to undertake the restorations of
extinct animals which still adorn the lower grounds of the Crystal
Palace at Sydenham.

But the discoveries of later years have shown that the Dicynodon and
Labyrinthodon, instead of being toad-like in form, were lacertilian or
salamander-like reptiles, with elongated bodies and moderately long
tails; that the Iguanodon did not usually stand upon "all-fours," but
more frequently sat up like some huge kangaroo with short fore limbs;
that the horn on its snout was really on its wrist; that the
Megalosaurus, with a more slender form of skeleton, had a somewhat
similar erect attitude, and the habit, perhaps, of springing upon its
prey, holding it with its powerful clawed hands, and tearing it with
its formidable carnivorous teeth.

Although the Bernissart Iguanodon has been to us a complete revelation
of what a Dinosaur really looked like, it is to America, and chiefly
to the discoveries of Marsh, that we owe the knowledge of a whole
series of new reptiles and mammals, many of which will be found
illustrated within these pages.

Of long and short-tailed Pterodactyles we now know almost complete
skeletons and details of their patagia or flying membranes. The
discovery of the long-tailed feathered bird with teeth--the
Archæopteryx, from the Oolite of Solenhofen, is another marvellous
addition to our knowledge; whilst Marsh's great Hesperornis, a
wingless diving bird with teeth, and his flying toothed bird, the
Ichthyornis dispar, are to us equally surprising.

Certainly, both in singular forms of fossil reptilia and in early
mammals, North America carries off the palm.

Of these the most remarkable are Marsh's Stegosaurus, a huge torpid
reptile, with very small head and teeth, about twenty feet in length,
and having a series of flattened dorsal spines, nearly a yard in
height, fixed upon the median line of its back; and his Triceratops,
another reptile bigger than Stegosaurus, having a huge neck-shield
joined to its skull, and horns on its head and snout. Nor do the
Eocene mammals fall short of the marvellous, for in Dinoceras we find
a beast with six horns, and sword-bayonet tusks, joined to a skeleton
like an elephant.

Latest amongst the marvels in modern palæontological discovery has
been that made by Professor Fraas of the outline of the skin and fins
in Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris, which shows it to have been a veritable
shark-like reptile, with a high dorsal fin and broad fish-tail, so
that "fish-lizard" is more than ever an appropriate term for these old
Liassic marine reptiles.

As every palæontologist is well aware, restorations are ever liable to
emendation, and that the present and latest book of extinct monsters
will certainly prove no exception to the rule is beyond a doubt, but
the author deserves our praise for the very boldness of his attempt,
and the honesty with which he has tried to follow nature and avoid
exaggeration. Every one will admire the simple and unaffected style in
which the author has endeavoured to tell his story, avoiding, as far
as possible, all scientific terms, so as to bring it within the
intelligence of the unlearned.