222 Kansas Academy of Science. 



the femur, tibia and fibula doubled on themselves, while the foot 

 from the tarsal joint is stretched downward. The hind feet were 

 thirty-one inches below the pelvis, and were, as I believe, in normal 

 position. I am strengthened in this view by the fact that the 

 "mummy" (so-called by Professor Osborn) that we found three 

 years ago near this specimen, and that is now in the American 

 Museum, had the hind limbs doubled under the body in the same 

 way. This was also true of the specimen first mentioned in this 

 paper. Consequently we must change the pose of these duck-bills 

 from the erect position in which all but one in the American Mu- 

 seum have been mounted. Even that one, however, is simply in 

 the position that an animal who walks on his hind limbs would 

 assume if he fed off the ground. I therefore believe I have dis- 

 covered sufficient evidence to prove that the Trachodon was a 

 swimmer; in fact, we already know that from the one I sent Pro- 

 fessor Osborn. The front feet were web-footed; and his skin, with 

 minute scales, shows he was a water animal, instead of land as was 

 always supposed. Now, in addition, I claim that he was far more 

 like a lizard than has been imagined. He walked liked a lizard, 

 with body close to the ground and tail dragging out behind. The 

 great trouble with paleontologists has been that they have created 

 a theory and want the facts to support it. For instance, it is taught 

 that the dinosaurs partook of the characteristics of the three great 

 living families, the birds, reptiles and mammals, and consequently 

 they were largely a composite of these three families. Instead of 

 that, as far as I have discovered, in the Trachodon line at least, 

 they lived in the water, and only came on the land at the peril of 

 their lives, as they had no means of defense against the king of 

 carnivorous reptiles, Tyranosaurus — a fearful creature, with skull 

 four feet long, and armed with horrid teeth four inches long. 



The duck-bill lived in the bayous of the country. He was a 

 powerful swimmer, and could use his great hind limbs, eight feet 

 long, in the same manner as a frog uses his. Or, while feeding on 

 the rushes that lined the sluggish streams, he could plant his pow- 

 erful hind feet in the sandy bottom, while, with his front ones act- 

 ing as arms, he could pull into his duck-billed mouth the succulent 

 forage. And as the female went on shore to deposit her eggs in 

 the sand, she crept along like lizards of to-day, the limbs doubled 

 up on themselves, except from the tarsal and carpal joints, which 

 acted as the knee of mammals. They lifted the body sufficiently 

 high to clear the ground, but the tail dragged behind. Conse- 

 quently he did not stand up like a kangaroo and walk on his hind 



