106 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



must be guessed at, perhaps it would sound better to say 

 estimated, but it really means the same), and knowing 

 that some sections are from the front part of the verte- 

 bral column and some from the back we must fill in the 

 gaps as best we may. It may be said that since the re- 

 storation was made for Buffalo, the actual skeleton has 

 been mounted by Mr. C. W. Gilmore, and due to more 

 careful study and aided by more material, he has made 

 the number of trunk vertebrae two less than were origi- 

 nally ascribed to it. The ribs offer a little aid in this 

 task, giving certain details of the vertebrae, while those 

 in turn tell something about the adjoining parts of the 

 ribs. We finish our Triceratops with a tail of moderate 

 length, as indicated by the rapid taper of the few verte- 

 brae available, and from these we gather, too, that in life 

 the tail was round, and not flattened, and that it neither 

 served for swimming nor for a balancing pole. And so, 

 little by little, have been pieced together the fragments 

 from which we have derived our knowledge of the past, 

 and thus has the palaeontologist read the riddles of the 

 rocks. 



To make these dry bones live again, to clothe them 

 with flesh and reconstruct the creature as he was or may 

 have been in life, is, to be honest, very largely guess- 

 work, though to make a guess that shall come any- 

 where near the mark not only demands a thorough 

 knowledge of anatomy — for the basis of all restoration 

 must be the skeleton — but calls for more than a passing 

 acquaintance with the external appearance of living 

 animals. And while there is nothing in the bones to 

 tell how an animal is, or was, clad, they will at least 

 show to what group the creature belonged, and, that 

 known, there are certain probabilities in the case. 

 A bird, for example, would certainly be clad in feathers. 

 Going a little farther, we might be pretty sure that the 



