PREFACE BY DR. HENRY WOODWARD, vii 



a huge torpid reptile, with very small head and teeth, about 

 twenty feet in length, and having a series of flattened 

 dorsal spines, nearly a yard in height, fixed upon the 

 median line of its back ; and his Triceratops, another 

 reptile bigger than Stegosaurus, having a huge neck-shield 

 joined to its skull, and horns on its head and snout. Nor 

 do the Eocene mammals fall short of the marvellous, 

 for in Dinoceras we find a beast with six horns, and sword- 

 bayonet tusks, joined to a skeleton like an elephant. 



Latest amongst the marvels in modern palseontological 

 discovery has been that made by Professor Fraas of the 

 outline of the skin and fins in Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris, 

 which shows it to have been a veritable shark-like reptile, 

 with a high dorsal fin and broad fish-tail, so that " fish- 

 lizard" is more than ever an appropriate term for these 

 old Liassic marine reptiles. 



As every palaeontologist is well aware, restorations are 

 ever liable to emendation, and that the present and latest 

 book of extinct monsters will certainly prove no exception 

 to the rule is beyond a doubt, but the author deserves our 

 praise for the very boldness of his attempt, and the honesty 

 with which he has tried to follow nature and avoid 

 exaggeration. Every one will admire the simple and un- 

 affected style in which the author has endeavoured to tell 

 his story, avoiding, as far as possible, all scientific terms, 

 so as to bring it within the intelligence of the unlearned. 

 He has, moreover, taken infinite pains to study up his 

 subject with care, and to consult all the literature 

 bearing upon it. He has thus been enabled to convey 

 accurate information in a simple and pleasing form, and 

 to guide the artist in his difficult task with much wisdom 

 and intelligence. That the excellence of the sketches is 



b 



