60 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



ber lean and hungry after a three months' 

 fast. 



Zeuglodons must have been very numerous 

 in the old Gulf of JNIexico, for bones are found 

 abundantly through portions of our Southern 

 States ; it was also an inhabitant of the old 

 seas of southern Europe, but, as we shall see, 

 it gave place to the great fossil shark, and this 

 in turn passed out of existence. Still, common 

 though its bones may be, stories of their use 

 for making stone walls — and these stories are 

 still in circulation — resolv^e themselves on 

 close scrutiny into the occasional use of a big 

 vertebra to support the corner of a corn- crib. 



The scientific name of Zeuglodon is Basilo- 

 saurus, cctoklcs, the whale-like king lizard — the 

 fu'st of these names, Basilosaiirus, having been 

 given to it by the original describer. Dr. Har- 

 lan, who supposed the animal to have been a 

 reptile. Now it is a primary rule of nomen- 

 clature that the first name given to an animal 

 must stick and may not be changed, even by 

 the act of a zoological congress, so Zeuglodon 

 must, so far as its name is concerned, mas- 

 querade as a reptile for the rest of its paleon- 



