VIII. 



The Restoration of Extinct Animals.' 



As the writer very truly remarks in the volume before us, the 

 general public most certainly does not appreciate dry bones, 

 more especially when they are found in the detached and frequently 

 imperfect condition so common in the older formations of this country. 

 With the laudable endeavour to excite a more general interest in the 

 monsters of a former world, he has accordingly set himself the very 

 difficult task of endeavouring to clothe them with skin and muscle, 

 and to set their portraits, as thus restored, before the eyes of a wonder- 

 ing public. Needless to say, in such a task everything depends upon 

 the skill of the artist and his knowledge of anatomy, and as we believe 

 that Mr. Hutchinson is neither an artist nor an anatomist, such 

 criticisms as we have to make on his restorations will apply chiefly to 

 the draughtsman, who, we trust, is as pachydermatous, for the nonce, 

 as the animals he portrays. 



The idea of restoring extinct animals so as to present some 

 semblance — we do not care to speculate how remote — to their original 

 form, is no new one, dating at least as far back as Cuvier, by whom 

 very fine restorations were made of the Palaeotheres and Anoplotheres 

 of the Paris Basin. Later on Buckland and Conybeare attempted the 

 restoration of the Ichthyosaur and Plesiosaur, and, indeed, so success- 

 fully that their models now require but comparatively little modifica- 

 tion to bring them up to date. In all these cases, as well as in that 

 of the South American Megathere, the restorers had more or less 

 nearly complete skeletons of the animals in question before them, 

 and they, accordingly, could not well wander very far from the truth. 

 The same remark will apply to the restorations which have been 

 from time to time attempted of the various large mammals of the 

 Pleistocene and Pliocene. When, however, w^e come to tell the tale 

 of what has been previously done in the way of restoring the giant 

 land reptiles of the Secondary epoch, we have nothing to record but 

 disaster and confusion. This is due to the circumstance that it was 

 formerly considered possible to restore an animal correctly from a 

 single limb or bone. Now, however, w-e know better, and are fully 



' " Extinct Monsters. A Popular Account of some of the Larger Forms of 

 Ancient Animal Life." By Rev. H. N. Hutchinson. With Illustrations oy J. Smit. 

 London ; Chapman and Hall, 1892. 8vo. Pp. xx. and 254. Price 12s. 



