SOME NEWSPAPER NONSENSE 51 



*" mout," and then " moth." A similar clerical error is 

 responsible for the name Gavial, which is applied to the 

 long, narrow-nosed crocodile of India, both as a scien- 

 tific name (Gavialis) and colloquially. Really the " v " 

 is due to a misreading of an " r," the creature's native 

 name being Garial. It was so written down and sent 

 home by an early explorer, but his handwriting being 

 wanting in clearness, the word was copied as Gavial and 

 the scientific patent issued in that name. 



22. False News as to Extinct Monsters 



The tendency of English newspapers to bedeck them- 

 selves every now and again with rank absurdities copied 

 from American rubbish-sheets is a disease. On no sub- 

 ject outside the field of natural history and medicine 

 would any editor dream of printing the stuff which 

 does duty as " news " in regard to these departments 

 stuff which has not even the semblance of being care- 

 fully concocted, but yet is found " good enough " to 

 circulate as serious information. 



Another antediluvian monster, much larger than the 

 mammoth, was reported in a London evening paper at 

 the end of November 1907. The article devoted to it 

 is a mass of absurdity, a burlesque of a genuine note on 

 the subject. It appears that the most ordinary thing 

 happened at Los Angelos, California, namely, that some 

 workmen, in driving a tunnel, unearthed some fossil 

 bones. We are not surprised to learn (though it is 

 announced as a marvel) that the bones were those of 

 a mastodon (of which you may see a whole skeleton 

 in Cromwell-road), and those of the extinct American 

 elephant called Elephas columbi. This very common- 

 place occurrence was certainly not worth recording in a 

 London daily paper. So it is elaborately dressed up 



