SIGNS ON THE BEACH 5 



though he had seen the bird that a sandpiper alighted here for a 

 brief period, for here is his signature. 



It is plain that tracks in the sand mean as much to the natu- 

 ralist as do tracks in the snow to the hunter, and trails on the 

 land to the Indian who follows his course by signs not seen by 

 an untrained eye. 



The tide effaces much that is written by foot and wing, but 

 sometimes such signs are preserved and become veritable "foot- 

 prints on the sands of time." In the Museum of Natural History 

 in New York is a fossil slab, taken from the Triassic sandstone, 

 showing the footprints of a dinosaurian reptile now extinct, 

 which, in that long ago, walked across a beach an event unim- 

 portant enough in itself, but more marvelous than any tale of 

 imagination when recorded for future ages. From such tracks, 

 together with fragments of skeletons, the dinosaur has been 

 made to live again, and its form . and structure have been as 

 clearly denned as those of the little sandpiper of Dr. Coues. 



