< *n one occasion two skulls were found with the jaws interlocked 

 and the teeth broken at the place of contact as though the animals, 

 I tot h victor ami vanquished in the fiercesl of the strife died together. 

 In this way the feast was constantly renewed. With the nightly 

 feast completed and the participants remaining behind, or in safe 

 retreat to the mountain fastnesses or in the neighboring jungles, the 

 day would bring another group to the ready meal. The condors, hawks. 

 eagles and vultures. Larger and more tierce than those of today 

 would gather here and feed to the full their rapacious desire. These, 

 too, though generally cautious, would lie at times off guard ami 

 unmindful of the treacherous tar, they would sink a foot, or dip 

 a wing, or touch the tail and add another specimen to earth's museum 

 and record another witness of the life that once lived here, but 

 could not survive. 



Then> is one other way in which some bones came to be in these 

 chimney-like holes of deposits and that is by drifting in from the 

 plains in flood time. These carried along by shallow water would 

 lie readily caught on the tarry masses which accumulated around the 

 springs then covered with drifting sand during drouth and impreg- 

 nated with oil. 



These pools of tar when not strewn with debris or covered with 

 dust and sand but fresh with the flow, appear in the twilight or 

 the shadow of night most remarkably like water and give the same 

 reflection from the mirror like surface. The deception is perfect and 

 almost daily, insects, snakes, birds, mice skunks, rabbits, etc., are 

 being caught. <)n one occasion a skunk started along a smooth dust 

 path across a circular area, but it had proceeded only about three 

 feet from the i-<\ac when further progress was impossible. The sur- 

 face was soft, the feet stuck fast and in a day or two only the 

 white tip of its tail remained above to tell of the fatal event. Another 

 night scene is illustrated by Figure 1. A beautiful burrowing owl 



Figure 1. 



19 



