2 INTRODUCTION. 



T^ature, the process of decay appears to have been 

 tlie exception, rather than the rule ; with beak or 

 tooth, or deadly claw, the strong having struck 

 down the less defended in a never-ending arena. 

 AVhat a hunting field, in one sense, the Old "World 

 must have been, when creatures of strange and 

 undefined natures infested the uncertain limits of 

 the elements, and what encounters must have taken 

 place in the ooze and mud periods, when monsters, 

 enormous in stature and stretch of wing, were the 

 implacable hunters of the air, the water, and the 

 slime ! Nor can the inhabitants of the earth, the 

 water, and the air, taking the term in its broad 

 rather than in its technical sense, be said to be less 

 hunters now, or less equipped with deadly weapons. 

 Some have supernumerary teeth to supply the loss 

 of such as might get broken in the fray. One strikes 

 down its prey at a blow, another impales, its victims 

 on thorns, and a third slays by poison. Some hunt 

 in company, from what would seem to be a very 

 love of sport — as crows and smaller birds give chase 

 to the owl, apparently rejoicing in his embarrass- 

 ment, at break of day. 



We need but refer to those remotely removed 

 stages of human life illustrated by drift beds, bone 



