THE DINOSAURS OR TERRIBLE LIZARDS. £43 



with its supply of nerve substance doubtless looked after the mere 

 mechanical functions of life; and while even the spinal cord is in 

 manv cases quite small, in some places, particularly in the sacral 

 region, it is subject to considerable enlargement. This is notably true 

 of Stegosaurus, where the sacral enhirgement is twent}' times the bulk 

 of the puny brain — a fact noted l)y Professor Marsh, and seized upon 

 b}' the newspapers, which announced that he had discovered a Dinosaur 

 with a brain in its pelvis. 



In their great variety of size and shape the Dinosaurs form an inter- 

 esting" parallel with the Marsupials of Australia. For just as these 

 are, as it were, an epitome of the class -of mammals, mimicking the 

 herbivores, carnivores, rodents, and even monkeys, so there are car- 

 nivorous and herbivorous Dinosaurs — Dinosaurs that dwelt on land 

 and others that habitual!}' resided in the water, those that walked 

 upright and those that crawled about on all fours; and. while there 

 are no hints that any possessed the power of liight, some members of 

 the group are very liird-like in form and structure, so nmch so that 

 it has been thought tiiat the two may have had a common ancestry. 



The smallest of the Dinosaurs whose acquaintance we have made 

 were little larger than chickens; the largest claim the distinction of 

 being the largest known quadrupeds that have Avalked the face of the 

 earth, the giants not only of their day, but of all time, before whose 

 huge frames the bones of the Mammoth, that familiar byword for all 

 things great, seem slight. 



For Brontosaurus, the thunder lizard, l)eneath whose mighty tread 

 the earth shook, and his kindred were from 40 to 60 feet long and 10 

 to 14 feet high, their thigh bones measuring 5 to 6 feet in length, 

 being the largest single bones known to us, while some of the vertebrae 

 were 4^ feet high, exceeding in dimensions those of a whale. 



The group to which Brontosaurus belongs, including Diplodocus 

 and ]Morosaurus, is distinguished by a large, though rather short, 

 bod}', very long neck and tail, and, for the size of the animal, a verj^ 

 small head. In fact, the head was so small and. in the case of Diplo- 

 docus, so poorly provided with teeth that it nuist have been quite a 

 task, or a long-continued pleasure, according to the state of its digestive 

 apparatus, for the animal to have eaten its daily meal. 



An elephant weighing 5 tons eats 1(M» pounds of hay and '2h pt)unds 

 of grain for his day's ration; but, as this food is in a comparatively 

 concentrated form, it would re(|uire at least twice this weight of green 

 fodder. 



It is a difficult matter to estimate the weight of a lixc Diplodocus or 

 a Brontosaurus, but it is pretty safe to say that it would not be far 

 from 20 tons, and that one would devour at the very least something- 

 over 700 pounds of leaves oi- twigs or plants each day -more, if the 

 animal felt realh' hungry. 



