PREFACE TO: THE FIRST EDITION 
BY DR. HENRY WOODWARD, F.R.S. 
LATE KEEPER OF GEOLOGY, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM 
I HAVE been requested by my friend Mr. Hutchinson, to 
express my opinion upon the series of drawings which have been 
prepared by that excellent artist of animals, Mr. Smit, for this 
little book entitled “ Extinct Monsters.” 
Many of the stories told in early days, of Giants and Dragons, 
may have originated in the discovery of the limb-bones of the 
Mammoth, the Rhinoceros, or other large animals, in caves, 
associated with heaps of broken fragments, in which latter the 
ignorant peasant saw in fancy the remains of the victims devoured 
at the monster’s repasts. 
In Louis Figuier’s World before the Deluge we are favoured 
with several highly sensational views of extinct monsters ; whilst 
the pen of the late Dr. Kinns has furnished valuable information 
as to the “slimy” nature of their blood! 
The late Mr. B. Waterhouse Hawkins (formerly a lithographic 
artist) was for years occupied in unauthorised restorations of 
various Secondary reptiles and Tertiary mammals, and about 1853 
he received encouragement from Professor Owen to undertake the 
restorations of extinct animals which still adorn the lower grounds 
of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. 
But the discoveries of later years have shown that the Dicyno- 
don and Labyrinthodon, instead of being toadlike in form, were 
