26 WAITING IN THE WILDERNESS 



These John Day fossil beds are world famous 

 and fossils from the region are now gathered in 

 many museums and in several private collec- 

 tions. Numbers of these fossil animals may be 

 classed almost as monstrosities a mixture of 

 two or more species of animals. The Chalico- 

 there, for instance, appears to have been made 

 up of parts now seen in three or more species. 

 The Australian duck-bill, an egg-laying animal 

 with body of an otter and bill of a duck, is one 

 of the few present species that still have a mixed 

 make-up. It is a living fossil. But in the ages 

 that followed the Oligocene there were changes 

 of climate, and grass and other kinds of new food 

 developed, and these caused changes in the animal 

 life. The John Day species lived in an epoch 

 when modern forms were being developed but 

 had not yet taken a distinct form. Numbers of 

 species of geologic animals became extinct long 

 ago. But all our present species of animals are 

 descendants of geologic species which did not 

 become extinct but which changed from age to 

 age and finally took on the modern model. 



"Has any one found a deer horn among the 

 fossils?" I one day asked. 



"No; during the Oligocene times the true deer 

 had not yet developed, and none I think then 

 had horns," answered one of the geologists. "A 

 little later a deer did exist and he had four 



