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 Mexico, 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 — resolve 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, cetoides, the whale-like king lizard—the 
first of these names, Basilosaurus, 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- 
