Ancient Giants 153 



upon his defenseless victim; with great claws of 

 hardened horn, full ten inches long, he rips his 

 body down and red blood floods the mossy way; 

 As he falls to earth and death, this tyrant, of 

 those early days, tears open his body, and feeds 

 on the quivering flesh and running blood in the 

 very shelter of the redwood forest. The awful 

 terror of the scene kept me well out of reach in 

 the water. I was overcome with the shock, com- 

 ing so swiftly in the peaceful woods. The sun 

 was not darkened, the perfume of flowers filled 

 the air, the gentle breeze sighed in the branches 

 overhead, showing that nature knows no pity, no 

 mercy. That death is inevitable, and still na- 

 ture's beauty, her changing seasons go on for 

 time. Even though the victim was a cold blood- 

 ed reptile I had become deeply interested in it. 

 I remembered however, that the carnivore must 

 prey on the herbivore ; that the latter increase so 

 rapidly, the death of one of their number would 

 leave scarcely a ripple on the reptilian life of the 

 everglades. I had time of course to study the 

 conqueror carefully, I saw he did not differ great- 

 ly from the one Professor Osborn described as 

 Tyrannosaurus rex, the king of the tyrants ; from 

 a partial skeleton and magnificent head, discov- 

 ered by Barnum Brown in the Hell Creek Beds 

 of northern Montana. His huge head is four 

 feet long, three feet wide and two feet high. The 

 jaws armed with teeth six inches long, with ser- 

 rated edges on the double cutting surfaces. A 



