56 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



life. The stronger could more readily capture 

 the weaker, while the fishes would gradually 

 perish through the constant freshening of the 

 water. With the death of any considerable 

 class, the balance of food-supply would be lost, 

 and many large species would disappear from 

 the scene. The most omnivorous and enduring 

 would longest resist the approach of starvation, 

 but would finally yield to inexorable fate — the 

 last one caught by the shifting bottom among 

 shallow pools, from Avhich his exhausted ener- 

 gies could not extricate him." * 



Like the " Fossil man " the sea-serpent 

 flourishes perennially in the newspapers and, 

 despite the fiict that he is now mainly regarded 

 as a joke, there have been many attempts to 

 habilitate this mythical monster and place him 

 on a foundation of fii'm fact. The most earn- 

 est of these was that of M. Oudemans, who 

 expressed his belief in the existence of some 

 rare and huge seal-like creature whose occa- 

 sional appearance in southern waters gave rise 



* Cope : " The Vertehrata of the Cretaceous Formations of 

 the West," p. 50, being the "Report of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey of the Territories," Vol. II. 



