RHYNCIIOCEPHALIA 



•79 



Their history among man- 

 kind, too, is brief. The first 

 known specimens, from western 

 North America, were described 

 by Professor Cope in 1876, 

 under the name Champsosaurus. 

 In the following year Professor 

 Gcrvais of Paris made known 

 another form from Rheims, 

 which he called Simocdosaurus, 

 so closely allied to the American 

 that even yet they have not 

 been sharply distinguished. 

 Some years later these European 

 specimens were more fully de- 

 scribed by the well-known 

 Belgian paleontologist, Dr. 

 Dollo, but it has been only 

 within the past few years that 

 our knowledge of the animals 

 has been made at all complete 

 by the discovery and description 

 of several excellent skeletons of 

 Champsosaurus by Mr. Barnum 

 Brown of New York. 



These semiaquatic reptiles 

 never grew very large — not more 

 than four or five feet in length; 

 nor did they ever succeed in 

 becoming fully at home in the 

 water, certainly no more so than 

 our modern alligators and croco 

 diles. They remained to the 

 end of their comparatively brief 

 existence essentially land ani- 

 mals, probably seeking their 

 food in the water but fleeing to 

 the land for protection and for 



Fig. 87. — Champsosaurus; skeleton, as 

 mounted in American Museum. (Brown.) 



