66 THE BRONTOSAUR AND ITS COUSINS 



great many controversies about the origin and rela- 

 tions of different tj^pes, but these things cannot be 

 discussed here. It is only necessary to add that the 

 remainder of the animal world continued to make the 

 sam^e progress, though while these monstrous and 

 curious brutes occupy the Mesozoic stage the others 

 have little interest. 



The bird and the mammal were there, in very 

 primitive forms, all the time; but the reptiles, if they 

 had had the power to reflect, would have considered 

 them very insignificant. They were so small and 

 furry, or feathery, that they were not even good food. 

 A reptile philosopher would have regarded them as 

 freaks of the family. He might have said that they 

 were what we now call "anachronisms"; that is to 

 say, things that had had a sensible meaning at one 

 time or other, but ought to have died out in the age 

 to which they really belonged — the Ice Age. What 

 use were fur and feathers, four-chambered hearts, and 

 making a fuss over one's eggs or young, in a gloriously 

 warm age like the Mesozoic? Their one advantage 

 was brain, for better blood meant a better-nourished 

 brain. But their advantage in this respect was not 

 overpowering — they had less brain than a rabbit or a 

 goose — and, in any case, brain was not much regarded 

 in that age of brawn. A twenty-ton reptile like the 

 Brontosaur had a brain no larger than a man's fist. 



So we leave the mammals and birds for later 

 chapters. The amphibians naturally throve like the 



