Extinct Monsters

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. He has, moreover, taken infinite pains to study up his subject with care, and to consult all the literature bearing upon it. He has thus been enabled to convey accurate information in a simple and pleasing form, and to guide the artist in his difficult task with much wisdom and intelligence. That the excellence of the sketches is due to the artist, Mr. Smit, is a matter of course, and so is the blame, where criticism is legitimate; and no one is more sensible of the difficulties of the task than Mr. Smit himself.

Speaking for myself, I am very well pleased with the series of sketches; and I may say so with the greater ease and freedom from responsibility, as I have had very little to do with them, save in one or two trifling matters of criticism. I may venture, however, to commend them to my friends among the public at large as the happiest set of restorations that has yet appeared.

H. W.

Plate XXIV.

THE LATE SIR RICHARD OWEN AND A SKELETON OF DINORNIS MAXIMUS.
(From a photograph.)

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

Natural history is deservedly a popular subject. The manifestations of life in all its varied forms is a theme that has never failed to attract all who are not destitute of intelligence. From the days of the primitive cave-dwellers of Europe, who lived with mammoths and other animals now lost to the world; of the ancient Egyptians, who drew and painted on the walls of their magnificent tombs the creatures inhabiting the delta of the Nile; of the Greeks, looking out on the world with their bright and child-like curiosity, down to our