AUTHORS PREFACE xi 
proportions, and, in many cases, more weird and strange than 
the imagination could conceive; and yet the public have never 
heard of these discoveries, by the side of which the now well- 
known “lost creations” of Cuvier, Buckland, or Conybeare 
sink into the shade. For once, we beg leave to suggest, the 
hungry pressman, seeking “copy,” has failed to see a good thing. 
Descriptions of some of ‘“Marsh’s monsters” and how they 
were found, might, one would think, have proved attractive to 
a public ever on the look-out for something new. 
Professor Huxley, comparing our present knowledge of the 
mammals of the Tertiary era with that of 1859, states that 
the discoveries of Gaudry, Marsh, and Filhol are “as if zoologists 
were to become acquainted with a country hitherto unknown, 
as rich in novel forms of life as Brazil or South America once 
was to Europeans.” 
The object of this book is to describe some of the larger 
and more monstrous forms of the past—the lost creations of 
the old world; to clothe their dry bones with flesh, and suggest 
for them backgrounds such as are indicated by the discoveries 
of geology: in other words, to endeavour, by means of pen and 
pencil, to bring them back to life. The ordinary public cannot 
learn much by merely gazing at skeletons set up in museums. 
One longs to cover their nakedness with flesh and skin, and to 
see them as they were when they walked this earth. 
Our present imperfect knowledge renders it difficult in some 
cases to construct successful restorations ; but, nevertheless, the 
attempt is worth making: and if some who think geology a very 
dry subject, can be converted to a different opinion on reading 
these pages, we shall be well rewarded for our pains. 
We venture to hope that those who will take the trouble 
to peruse this book, or even to look at its pictures, on which 
