24 



GIANTS AND PIGMIES. 



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abundance on the old Mentlip Island and its Rhaotic 

 shores — plenty of food for insect-eaters, Coleoptera — beetles, 

 (fee. What else have we here ? A tiny tootti -not Hsh 

 lunth, not reptile tooth — of a mammal — an insect-eater, a 

 microlestes, a little thief — a pigmy mammal — one of the firf t. of 

 mammals. Here we have a molar tooth of microlestes aiitujnus. 

 In 1847 several teeth of the simie kind were found in a bone- 

 deposit between the Keuper and Lias formations in Wurtcmberg, 

 Germany, by M. Plieninger of Stuttgart. Prof. Emmons also 

 discovered another insect-eating mammal in North Carolina 

 Triassic, U. S., a jaw-bone of Dromathenum sylvedre. Prof. 

 Owen compares this animal with the mi/rmecobhis of Australia. 

 Near Shepton-Mallet, Mr, Moore, F, G. S., discovered a 

 large reptile — Scelidosaurus — which lived during the Rhaetic 

 Period, a giant Dinosaur akin to the Prince Edward Islander. 



H. 



" Whitby's nuns • * • « 

 Told ^ « • » ^ 

 How, of thousand snakes, each one 

 Was changed into a coil of s> .ne 

 When holy Hilda prayed ; 

 Themselves, within their holy bound, 

 Their stony folds had often found." 



-SgoU. 



Our guide, Mr. Moore, now shows us the so called " Petrified 

 unakes" in their earliest sepulchre, not far above the "Insect 

 limestone" of No. 13. Here wo have Ammonites planorhis. 

 We have seen nothing approaching to it among the Ci^i)halo- 

 pods since we were in Arisaig, Nova Scutia. Science has 

 dispelled the legendary delusion, and proved that the 

 Ammonite is the shell of a Cephalopod — like a nautilus. We 

 80011 find Ammonites planorlns " abundant," and associated 

 ■with it Penfacrinites, stone-lilies, sometimes called '' Saint 

 Cuthbert's beads." 



" On a rock, by Lindisfarne, 

 Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 

 The sea-born beads that bear his name, 

 Such t lies had Whitby's fishers told. 

 And (aid they might his shape behold, 

 And hear his anvil sound ; 

 A deadened clang— a huge dim form 

 Seen but, and heard, when gathering storm 

 And night were closing round." 



