52 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



troops to select their share of the plunder, the 

 artillery was not suffered to play on that part 

 of the city in which the celebrated fossil was 

 known to be preserved. In the meantime, the 

 canon of St. Peter's, shrewdly suspecting the 

 reason why such peculiar favor was shown to 

 his residence, removed the specimen and con- 

 cealed it in a vault ; but, when the city was 

 taken, the French authorities compelled him 

 to give up his ill-gotten prize, which was 

 immediately transmitted to the Jardin des 

 Plantes, at Paris, where it still forms one of 

 the most interesting objects in that magnifi- 

 cent collection." And there it remains to 

 this day. 



The seas that rolled over western Kansas 

 were the headquarters of the Mosasaurs, and 

 hundreds — aye, thousands — of specimens 

 have been taken from the chalk bluflfs of that 

 region, some of them in such a fine state of 

 preservation that we are not only well ac- 

 quamted with their internal structure, but with 

 their outward appearance as well. They were 

 essentially swimming lizards — great, over- 

 grown, and distant relatives of the INIonitors 



