350 THE BOOK OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 



of the biggest of its kind, attaining a length of about eighty feet; 

 the Atlantosaurus, possessing a thigh-bone bigger than a man, and 

 perhaps thirty feet high; the Cetiosaurus, not less than sixty feet 

 in length, and the Iguanodon, so named because its teeth resemble 

 those of a West Indian land-lizard called the Iguana. 



But the king of the Deinosaurs was the Tyrannosaurus. Al- 

 though shorter than the Brontosaurus, he was quite superior to 

 that animal. The total length of a specimen in the American 

 Museum of Natural History in New York is thirty-nine feet. His 

 anatomy suggests brain power and agility. The specimen is 

 remarkable for the immense size of the feet, which are no less than 

 four feet long by three feet wide. Some of the teeth measured six 

 inches. He is thus described by a writer in Knowledge : " We 

 have every reason for congratulating ourselves that Tyrannosaurus 

 Rex is not our contemporary. He was practically a biped, with 

 an agile, bird-like manner of progression, the immense feet possess- 

 ing three enormous toes projecting forward, and one extending 

 backward — all furnished with huge tearing claws. The head is 

 much larger than that of the Brontosaur, and the great teeth are 

 serrated and sharp-edged. Tyrannosaurus seems to have come in 

 about the time that Brontosaurus went out — perhaps he materially 

 hastened the departure of the latter." This animal is declared to 

 be "the largest carnivorous land animal yet discovered, and the 

 most ferocious monster of the Reptile Age." The remains were 

 found at a place called Hell Creek in Montana. 



THE FIRST BIRDS.— It will be borne in mind that the Ptero- 

 dactyles already described were not birds, but Bat-like flying 

 reptiles. The first birds seem to have appeared in Jurassic times, 

 but they differed greatly from any birds that exist in the present 

 age. They bore indications of a reptile origin. Their jaws were 

 armed with teeth; they had long tails similar to those of lizards, 

 and each of the tail vertebrae bore a pair of feathers. Their bones 

 were solid and their flight must have been clumsy. The Archaeo- 

 pteryx (Greek, arche, a beginning; pteron, a wing) was discovered 

 in Bavaria, in the quarries of Solenhofen. The stone containing 

 the fossil is in the Natural History Museum; it was purchased for 

 a sum of ^950. These birds were no bigger than Rooks. 



In the Cretaceous rocks of North America, in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Rocky Mountains, remains of a bird, to which the name 

 of Hesperonis regalis has been given, were found by Professor 



