540 MANUAL OF NATUKAL HISTOKT. 



"In contemplation of created things," 



I have sat beneath the shade of crown-topped 

 Cycads, and heard the oft-repeated plunge, and 

 watched the gnome-like movements of those new- 

 made Saurian forms, the Fish-Lizards, as they 

 gambolled in the turbid waters, or basked along the 

 reeking mud-flats, while, as the day declined, Ptero- 

 dactyles, bat-like Lizards, would flit among the 

 trees above my head, snapping their bird-like jaws. 

 Half-hid among the Horse-tails of the swamps, that 

 "biggest born of earth," the reptile Mosasaurus, 

 waited warily for prey ; on the banks of mighty 

 rivers I saw the colossal Iguanodon, roaming harm- 

 lessly, and browsing on the juicy herbage ; in the 

 shadowy woods, that huge basalisk, Hylceosaurus, 

 lurked and lived ; while long-jawed Crocodiles, and 

 large web-footed Terrapins, usurped the marshes. 

 I observed, too, marsupial mammals, like monstrous 

 Kangaroos, hopping about vast arid plains, cropping 

 the scanty herbage. Another epoch has elapsed, 

 and another tribe of beings enter on the scene, 

 thick-skinned and snouted, "enormous in their gait/' 

 wallowing in estuaries, and seeking their food in 

 jungle and savannah. I saw the Dinotherium 

 tearing up the banks, or suspended by his tusks to 

 the shores of inland lakes ; I watched the fur-clad 

 Mammoth feeding in the arctic wilds ; and admired 

 the proportions of the great Elephant of the Lena ; 

 I gazed with wonder on the moving mass of the 

 shielded Glyptodon; and paused to watch the sloth- 

 like Mylodon seated on its haunches, tearing the 



