Animals Before Man 



owners were probably the actual rulers of the 

 sea as well as the highest types of life during 

 the Devonian period, which has been termed 

 the Age of Fishes from the abundance and 

 variety of the members of this class. 



And yet here, as elsewhere in reading the 

 history of the past, it is necessary to curb our 

 imagination,* and to consider that possibly 

 these fishes were not so bad as they have been 

 painted. Dr. Bashford Dean thinks that they 

 dwelt at the bottom ; and if this were so, their 

 diet may have consisted mainly of crabs and 

 shell-fish. The big . sea-lion of our Pacific 

 coast is the largest and most powerful of the 

 eared seals, and yet this animal subsists largely 

 on crabs, and preys upon such poor and bony 

 fishes as sculpins, while the still bigger walrus 

 uses his formidable-looking tusks for digging 

 clams. And so we may give Dinichthys and 

 his kin the benefit of a doubt. 



* There is an almost irresistible tendency to picture extinct 

 animals as much larger than they actually wen 1 , and to depict 

 them as monsters of strength and ferocity. But large as they 

 were, and fierce as they may have been, few among them could 

 equal their popular reputation. 



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