THE AGE OF REPTILES 



when broken each nodule was seen to contain the skele- 

 ton or skull of a great reptile. The Russian geologist 

 determined to make a most thorough investigation of 

 this wonderful deposit, and for years spent several thou- 

 sand pounds in having the nodules dug out by the 

 peasants after the year's farming work was over, and in 

 removing them to the University of Warsaw, where with 

 the finest instruments and greatest care the nodules are 

 opened, and each bone removed in fragments is put 

 together from its more or less broken parts, and firmly 

 cemented and set up in its natural position as a complete 

 skeleton. 



These Pareiasaurs reconstructed by Professor Ama- 

 litzky were about as big as well-grown cattle, but not 

 so high on the legs. Living at the same time, and its 

 skeleton now found near them, was an enormous and truly 

 terrible flesh-eating animal, with a skull two feet long 

 and enormous tiger-like teeth. This creature was named 

 Inostransevia. No doubt the vegetarian herds of Pareia- 

 saurus, whose small peg-like teeth indicate their harmless- 

 ness, were preyed on by the terrible Inostransevia, as 

 were their brethren in South Africa devoured by other 

 carnivorous reptiles of that remote Triassic age. So we 

 see the co-existence of blood-sucker and victim of the 

 destructive oppressor and the helpless oppressed forced 

 on our attention in these two localities, Russia and South 

 Africa, in days long before man was. Other land forms 

 were grotesque and curious in shape, the Chelonians for 

 example, big birds and crocodiles rolled into one, and 

 clothed in lizard-like skin queer pear-shaped brutes with 



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