196 EXTINCT MONSTERS 
with a few small specimens in our pocket, or in a bag at our 
back, can hardly realise how arduous must be the work of 
finding, digging out, and transporting for such long distances, 
the remains of the monsters of Kansas, and other parts of North 
America.! 
Leiodon proriger (Cope) was abundant in the old North 
American Cretaceous sea, and reached a length of seventy-five 
feet. It had a long projecting muzzle, somewhat like the snout 
of a sturgeon. Platycarpus and Tylosaurus had peculiarly sharp- 
pointed heads (see Figs. 69, 70, and 71). 
A few words may be added here with regard to Professor 
Cope’s important discovery of Leiodon—a genus already alluded 
Fic. 71.—Snout of Tylosaurus, palatal view. (After Marsh.) 
to as having been founded by Sir Richard Owen. The type 
specimen of Leiodon dyspelor,? which first indicated the 
characters of this wonderful species, was obtained from the 
yellow beds of the Niobrara epoch of the Jornada del 
Muerto, near Fort McRae, New Mexico. The greater part of 
the remains have been described by Professor Leidy. But a 
1 Mr, Charles H. Sternberg, who has spent his life collecting fossils for Cope, 
Osborn, von Zittel and others, has recently published his experiences in a 
delightful little volume (illustrated), under the title The Life of a Fossil 
Hunter, American Nature Series, Henry Holt and Co., New York. It is a 
most readable book, written with great enthusiasm. 
2 We retain the old spelling with the e as being nearer to the Greek, although 
Professor Cope writes it ‘‘ Liodon,” 
