EXTINCT MONSTERS 
INTRODUCTION 
“The earth hath gathered to her breast again 
And yet again, the millions that were born 
Of her unnumbered, unremembered tribes.” 
LET us see if we can get some glimpses of the primeval inhabi- 
tants of the world, that lived and died while as yet there were no 
men and women having authority over the fishes of the sea and 
the fowls of the air. 
We shall, perhaps, find this antique world quite as strange as 
the fairy-land of Grimm or Lewis Carroll. True, it was not 
inhabited by “slithy toves” or “jabber-wocks,” but by real beasts, 
of whose shapes, sizes, and habits much is already known—a 
good deal more than might at first be supposed. And yet, real 
as it all is, this antique world—this panorama of scenes that 
have for ever passed away—is a veritable fairy-land. In those 
days of which geologists tell us, the principal parts were played, 
not by kings and queens, but by creatures many of which were 
very unlike those we see around us now. And yet it is no fairy- 
land after all, where impossible things happen, and where im- 
possible dragons figure largely; but only the same old world 
in which you and I were born. Everything you will see here 
is quite true. All these monsters once lived. Truth is stranger 
than fiction; and perhaps we shall enjoy our visit to this 
B 
