472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



great lights — Prof. Joseph Leidy, Prof. E. D. Cope, and Prof. O. C. 

 Marsh. The last two, with an enthusiasm that has triumphed over 

 great difficulties, have especially produced startling results in their 

 individual explorations of the great graveyards of the ancient dead 

 in our Western Territories. Of the labors of Prof. Cope, as con- 

 ducted under government auspices, it is proposed here to offer a few 

 results. We shall simply give some details of his work done last 

 summer, as the vertebrate paleontologist in behalf of Prof. F. V. 

 Haydon's " Seventh Annual Report of the United States Geological 

 Survey of the Territories." Prof. Cope found himself literally in a 

 crowded cemetery of a quadrupedal race long extinct. 



The list which now immediately follows is limited almost exclu- 

 sively to the Miocene fossils of " the Bad Lands " of Colorado. It 

 tells a marvelous story of rich and formidable fauna that existed on 

 our virgin continent in that Middle-Tertiary age. The Rodents, or 

 gnawing animals, were well represented. Five genera seem to be es- 

 tablished, embracing eighteen species. The predecessors of the squir- 

 rels were there. One, named JParamys, was a little larger than our 

 chickaree. One little creature, called Heliscomys, had four teat-like 

 cusps on the crown of each molar in the lower jaw. This was the 

 tiniest thing of them all, and stood, probably, among the Miocene ro- 

 dents, as the common mouse does among the gnawers of to-day. If, 

 indeed, Heliscomys be the ancestral mouse, our Mus musculus has a 

 very ancient pedigree. The rabbits were represented by the genus 

 Pakeologus. 



There are eleven species of Insectivora, arranged under five genera, 

 with the names Domnina, JEJmbasis, 3£iothen, JTerpetotherium, and 

 Isacis. Except the last one, all these are allied to the mole. They 

 had doubtless the same burrowing habits and food appetencies as the 

 Talpa tribe that to-day follows and annoys the gardener at his work. 

 It is an item gained of real knowledge as respects animal habits, to 

 learn that the earthworms and the subterranean larval insects were 

 kept in check in the same manner then as now. And, if these are the 

 predecessors of the Talpa race, we would like to know if the primitive 

 stock were as clever engineers at constructing subterranean earth- 

 works, for the mole to-day is a genius in that line. There are six spe- 

 cies in the list, and they differ quite a good deal in size ; and would 

 seem also to differ in some more important aspects, as the name of the 

 Herpetotlwrium signifies the " crawling beast." It is worthy of re- 

 mark that these ancient moles, like the modern, were very small ani- 

 mals. Necessarily, then, the fossil bones must have been very minute. 

 They are, however, preserved with wonderful perfection. 



As to that other insect-eater, Isacis, it represented the existing 

 hedgehog, as shown by its anatomical structure. And as snakes 

 abounded then, probably, like its congeners now, it made many a meal 

 of them, utterly regardless even of those poison fangs, if such they 



