8o HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



preservation of the oysters themselves, however, had made 

 them so friable that we could not handle them without 

 their going to pieces ; while the other shells being of slightly 

 different composition were preserved intact. This was a 

 contrast to our experience elsewhere. On other sites it 

 was the oyster shells which were solid while the others 

 were powdery or had been completely leached away, leav- 

 ing only imperfect impressions. 



About five in the afternoon we had to quit, and each 

 man made for camp carrying whatever he had finished dur- 

 ing the day. Again the horses had to be hunted up and 

 fed, after which we were ready for our seven o'clock supper, 

 always the chief meal of the day. This eaten, we turned to 

 and catalogued the specimens, giving each a number, and 

 making a record of the place where found and all accom- 

 panying conditions. We seldom found it too early to turn 

 in soon after this, each man seeking out the particular spot 

 among the bushes where he had placed his bed. One fea- 

 ture of the nights struck us particularly, and that was their 

 stillness. In the western United States one listens to the 

 weird calls of the coyotes as a part of the experience, but 

 here there were neither canines nor birds to break the quiet, 

 the little foxes being entirely silent, and the night birds 

 lacking. 



For over a week we came and went without incident, our 

 finds varying from skulls of rhinoceros-like animals down 

 to the jaws of tiny rodents the size of a mouse, but related 

 to the cavies of which the Guinea pig is the best known 

 representative. From the first we began to find tiny jaws 

 belonging to marsupials, suggesting similar ones found 

 living to-day in various parts of Australia. There were 

 also numerous animals the size of a sheep, but with heavy 

 clumsy bodies and biting teeth in the front of the jaws, 

 a group now entirely extinct; and numerous bird bones, va- 

 rying from small flying forms, to long-legged, long-billed, 

 heron-like birds, and one in particular a big running bird 



