142 Ancient Giants 



panded into lakes of considerable size, bordered 

 everywhere with the redwood forest, and other 

 trees on the rising land. With thick underbrush 

 and high grass beneath, I noticed the water was 

 full of gar-pike and turtles, the latter having 

 beautifully sculptured shells, some of them a 

 couple of feet in diameter. Among them I 

 noticed the beautiful Trionyx, the shell marked 

 with lovely designs. I remembered how, when 

 on Professor Cope's Expedition to Montana in 

 1876, I was carried away with delight when I 

 gathered from a sandstone bluff fragments of 

 these shells belonging to the Judith River Beds 

 of the Upper Missouri. But here were the liv- 

 ing, breathing animals themselves; so oblivious 

 of my presence that they crowded on the very 

 log on which I was standing. Man's cruelty to 

 animals had not caused them to fear the human 

 eye; an abundant food supply prevented vicious- 

 ness. When I attempted to catch one, however, 

 they all glided gracefully off into the water. 

 Whole schools of gars and other fishes darted 

 here and there in full view. 



Turning back to the oyster bed, and searching 

 along shore for a suitable piece of drift wood 

 with which to make a boat, in the flotsam that 

 lined the shore, I also found mingled with the 

 driftwood and shells, moss and sea-weed, count- 

 less bones of dinosaurs, not brittle and filled 

 with rocky material, as were those I found on 

 Red Deer river yesterday, but bones with flesh. 



