266 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



keel of a boat. The head was ten inches long and 

 armed with sharp teeth. By keeping the body hori- 

 zontal it could explore a column of water six feet 

 high and wide, for any unfortunate fish within the 

 zone of its activity. I would name this great loon 

 the Snake-Bird of the Niobrara Group. This speci- 

 men I longed to find for so many years, but was glad 

 to give the credit to my son. It is to be mounted in 

 the American Museum, and I picture it as it left my 

 laboratories (Fig. 41). 



A word also about that great flying machine of 

 the Cretaceous, the flying lizard Pteranodon. The 

 skeleton and a very fine skull, which my son found 

 on Hackberry Creek in 1906, is now mounted in the 

 British Museum, where my warm friend Dr. A. 

 Smith Woodward assures me " my specimens are 

 greatly admired." 



Especially have I been fortunate in the Kansas 

 Chalk where my son, George Fryer, has charge as I 

 write these lines of my twentieth expedition to 

 those beds, and where he has discovered, and safely 

 collected and shipped to my laboratory, a great 

 plate of the beautiful stemless Crinoid Uintacnnus 

 socialis. I sent one section to Professor M. Boule, 

 of the National Natural History Museum of France, 

 at Paris. Hundreds of these rare animals are 

 represented in this slab (Fig. 42). 



Before these pages go to press, and a year after I 



