' It would be well for students of extinct forms of life to enter this domain of science 

 without any preconceived ideas at all ! It would save a great deal of confusion and 

 trouble in the end ; and moreover would be far more truly scientific. For what right 

 has any one, however great his knowledge or his ability, to dictate to Nature, and to say 

 this or that is impossible that no reptile, for instance, could possibly have flown ; or 

 that such and such teeth were impossible for a reptile ? . . . Facts such as those should 

 teach caution, and every student of palaeontology will do well to remember the saying of 

 Agassiz : " The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the extravagant, that there 

 is scarcely any conception too extraordinary for Nature to realise.'" 



Creatures of other Days, 

 by Rev. H. N. HUTCHINSON, p. 73. 



