I lO 



NATURE 



[November 24, 1910 



of the whare-whakairo , or large communal assembly 

 hall, is of considerable interest. The book is well illus- 

 trated, and the note on Maori pronunciation is wel- 

 come, but an index is lacking. The get-up of the 

 book is a credit to the New Zealand firm which pub- 

 lishes it. 



THE ATTITUDE OF DIPLODOCUS.^ 



vJINCE Mr. Carnegie gave a plaster cast of the 

 •^ skeleton of Diplodocus to the British Museum in 

 1905, he has distributed other copies of this remarkable 

 Dinosaur to the museums of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and 

 Bologna. A large part of an actual skeleton was also 

 given by the late Mr. Morris K. Jessup to the Sencken- 

 berg Museum in Frankfurt. A widespread interest 

 has thus been aroused in the gigantic Sauropodous 

 Dinosauria, and there have been many discussions 

 as to their original form and mode of life. 



When the late Profs. Marsh and Cope first obtained 

 nearly complete skeletons of these reptiles, they com- 

 pared the limbs with those of an elephant, and decided 

 that the creatures must have walked in a quadrupedal 

 manner, with the body well raised above the ground. 

 Considering their immense weight, the position of 

 their nostrils on the highest point of the head, and 

 the feebleness of their dentition, which seems to imply 

 a succulent food, the professors were agreed that the 

 animals must have spent much of their lite under water. 

 Prof. Cope also supposed that the long neck, which 

 characterises all the Sauropoda, would enable them to 

 reach the surface to breathe while browsing on water- 

 weeds in a considerable depth of water. It is now 

 generally admitted that the theory of their semi- 

 aquatic mode of life is well founded, and it has been 

 observed that the feeble teeth are not placed in close 

 series, but separated by small gaps, as if they formed 

 a strainer for the food which was taken in. Much 

 difference of opinion, however, has arisen as to the 

 attitude of the limbs. 



Messrs. Hatcher and Holland, who prepared the 

 cast of Diplodocus, and Prof. H. F. Osborn, who 

 mounted a skeleton of Brontosaurus in the American 

 Museum at New York, followed Marsh and Cope in 

 arranging the limbs for a quadrupedal walking gait. 

 Dr. O. P. Hay, of Washington, on the other hand, 

 subsequently maintained that the limbs must have 

 been bent, like those of a crocodile, for crawling, and 

 last year Mr. Gustav Tornier, of Berlin, elaborated 

 this theory, publishing a somewhat fantastic sketch 

 of the skeleton as he would arrange it. Prof. O. 

 Abel, of Vienna, has now prepared an interesting 

 summary of all these discussions, and finally concludes 

 that the attitude of Diplodocus and its allies, with 

 ■which the restorations have made us familiar, is really 

 the correct one. 



Prof. Abel begins his paper by deploring the fact 

 that most museums restore the skeletons of extinct 

 animals, partly by hypothetical plaster-work, partly 

 by using the bones of more than one individual, with- 

 out any clear explanation on the labels. He has, 

 therefore, taken the trouble to state exactly the nature 

 of the materials from which the well-known cast of 

 Diplodocus carnegii was made, and he has no serious 

 fault to find with its general composition. It is pos- 

 sible that two or three vertebrae are lacking, and part 

 of the tail may not be sufficiently stout, otherwise 

 there is little to criticise. He thinks that the axis of 

 the head is in direct line with that of the neck, as 

 usual in reptiles, and that the browsing attitude is due 

 to the natural curvature of the end of the neck. He 



1 " Die RekonstruVtInn des Diplodocus." By O. Abel. Abhand'. k.V. 

 7O0l.-botan. Ges. in Wfen. Bd. v., Heft 3. Pp. 60+Tafel 3. (Jena: 

 C Fischer, 1910.) Price 2.40 marks. 



NO. 2143, VOL'. 85] 



points to the deeply ovate cross-section of the trunk 

 as showing that it is not adapted for crawling ailong 

 the grouncl,^ but must have been lifted during locomo- 

 tion. He then discusses the structure of the feet in 

 detail, and demonstrates that they are digitigrade, the 

 fore feet more so than the hind feet. As in Iguanodon 

 (of which footprints show the impressions) there must 

 have been elastic pads beneath the toes, and most of 

 the weig^ht of the body .seems to have been supported 

 by those below the reduced outer toes. The structure 

 of the digitigrade feet necessitates nearly upright 

 limbs, which would support the trunk and give the 

 reptile a true walking gait. There would be a slight 

 outward bend of the elbow, but otherwise no sprawl- 

 ing attitude. The Sauropoda, therefore, form no excep- 

 tion to the rule, that the extinct Dinosaurs resembled 

 mammals and birds in their habits and movements. 



THE PROTECTION OF NATURES. 

 " T T is the first time a verv comprehensive attempt 



■■• has been made to do important public service 

 of this character on purely non-partisan lines. . . . 

 It is indeed a great work. We have here the first 

 Commission of the kind ever established bv a National 

 Government. . . ." Thus the Hon. Clifford Sifton, 

 chairman of the Commission for the Conservation of 

 the Natural Resources of Canada, at the conclusion 

 of the Commission's first annual meeting, held in 

 January of this year. 



The establishment of this Commission is a note- 

 worthy departure, and is actually a method of insur- 

 ing the future prosperity of the country. Canada is 

 peculiarly amenable to such a step, as large areas of 

 her land are in the hands of the Government, and 

 also peculiarly in need of it. The latter point is 

 obvious when it is remembered that owners of timber 

 property are only just beginning to assimilate the idea 

 of afforestation, that lumbermen are constitutionally 

 destructive, and that forest fires are not an occasional 

 catastrophe, but seasonally recurring and accepted 

 phenomena. In England we hardly realise this last 

 fact, or the destruction produced by a forest fire. The 

 following statement gives a glimpse of the reality : — 

 "The spring fires are not, as a rule, so dangerous to 

 the forests, as they are what we call leaf fires, while 

 the fall fires are soil fires. The leaf fire will run 

 through the woods, and while it destroys a lot of 

 timber, it does not have the same effect as a fire in 

 the fall, because that not only takes the leaves and 

 wood, but it takes the soil as well, and burns down 

 five feet, so that for a thousand years nothing li'ili 

 grow on that land." (My italics.) It appears that 

 railvvav locomotives cause the majority of these devas- 

 tating conflagrations. 



Destruction without perpetuation has been carried 

 on in other departments. "In the Yukon there are,' 

 says Mr. Congdon, "hundreds of square miles where 

 I do not think vou could now find a single fur-bearinc; 



1 First Annual Report of the Commission of Corserva'ion, Canada. Bv 

 courtesy of tbe High Commissioner for Canada, 17 Victoria Street, London. 

 (Ottawa • The Mortimer Co.. 1910.) 



Mitteilungen des Provinzialkomitees fiir Naturdenkm^lpflege. Schleswig- 

 Holsteinischen, No. i (1909) ; Pommerschen, No. 2 (1910) ; Pachsische", 

 No. I (1908); Westpreussischen, Nos. i, 2, 3(1908-10); und des Rezirks- 

 komitees Regierungsbezirk Sigmaringen, No i (1909); Cassel undWaldeck, 

 Nos. I, 2 (1908-9) 



Naturdenkmalpflege und Aquarienkunde. By R. Hermann and W. 

 Wolterstorff. (Brunswick. 1909.) 



Naturdenkmalpflege. By Prof. Guricb. (Sorderabdruck aus der Zeit- 

 sch.'ift der Landwirtschaftskammer fiir die Provinz Schlesien, 1909.) 



ijher Zeil u. Methode der Naturdenkmalpflege. By Prof. Dr. B. 

 Sc^aefer-Cassel. (Schmalkalden, 1909.) 



Uber das Tierleben in dem von der Staatsforstverw.Tltung geschutzten 

 Zwergbirken-Moor in Neulinum. By Dr. Th. KuHlgatz. (Sonderabdruck 

 aus dem 32, Bericht des Westpreussischen Botanisch-Zoologischen Vereins, 

 Danzig, 1910 ) 



Neues aus der Naturdenkmalpflege. By Dr. W. Gunther. (Naturwis- 

 senschaftliche Wochenschrift, August 7, 1910 ; Jena.) 



