Plated Dinosaurs 99 



meadows to the lake itself. See that thicket ! Let 

 us approach it quietly and peep through as it 

 opens beyond in a park in the forest. Such a 

 sight is rarely offered to human eyes. See that 

 reptile over twenty feet in length, a great round 

 body twenty feet in circumference, a short stub- 

 by tail. A small horse-shoe shaped head with 

 horn sheathed jaws, small but strong. Back 

 of the head, are necklaces of bony scutes, keeled 

 down the center separated along their edges, by 

 small nodules of bone, that move on each other 

 giving a mobility to the skin even though the 

 animal is as heavily armored as a fighting auto- 

 mobile of the great European war of today. The 

 tail, too, is covered with enormous bony plates, 

 though light and porous, compared with the 

 dense bony-plates covering the body; the end is 

 heavy and blunt, club-like in fact. His pillar- 

 like limbs are short and robust, to support such 

 a body. The belly almost reaches the ground, 

 the heavy tail drags behind. He moves along 

 sluggishly, compared with the lighter horned 

 dinosaurs and carnivores. See how readily he 

 beats a passage way through the underbrush that 

 borders the woods, and emerges into the open 

 park. We notice his huge proportions and uni- 

 que appearance. He is completely armored and 

 sluggish in his gait. It does not seem that even 

 the fierce Gorgosaurus of the everglades, the 

 tyrant of this peaceful woods would find a single 

 vulnerable place open to attack. More likely if 



