4o8 



Marvels of the Universe 



The food of Plesiosaurs, besides fish, consisted of cuttle-fishes and crustaceans ; and the 

 types of later development show by the fossilized contents of their stomachs that they were 

 in the habit of swallowing stones to assist them in grinding up the harder parts of shellfish. 



The largest known members of this order of sea-reptiles with paddles attained to a 

 length of twenty feet. Plesiosaurs of various genera and species frequented the shallow seas 

 all over the globe down to the verge of the Tertiary Epoch. They must have looked very 



like the average sketch of a sea-serpent, with 

 their long necks, turtle-like bodies and short, 

 thick tails. In fact, one is tempted to beheve 

 that there are still Plesiosaurs which have 

 survived down to the present era in the great 

 oceans, and whose occasional appearance gives 

 rise to the stories of a great sea-serpent. 



THE HAND FLOWER 



One hundred and twenty-five j^ears ago there 

 was discovered near the town of Toluco, in 

 Mexico, a tree about thirty feet in height and 

 covered with large leaves, much like those of 

 the Plane-tree in shape. 



The Mexican Indians regarded this tree with 

 feelings of great veneration : they believed 

 it to be of great age — as, no doubt, it was 

 — and that it was the only tree of its kind 

 in existence. 



But the chief reason for their reverence 

 lay in the pecuhar structure of the flowers, 

 from which a long and skinny hand, with 

 claw-tipped fingers, appeared to protrude. 

 So great was their interest in this tree that 

 as soon as its flowering time arrived they 

 flocked to it and gathered every flower ; so 

 that there was little chance of its producing 

 seeds. 



But although it was thus prevented from 

 propagating itself in that neighbourhood, the 

 Toluco example was not the only tree of its 

 kind ; for about fourteen years later a traveller 

 in Guatemala discovered its probably true home,'^here forests of it existed. It is therefore 

 surmised that in much earlier times some wandering Indians, being struck by the remarkable 

 flowers, carried off a young plant to Toluco and thus established the cult of the Hand- 

 flower in Mexico. They gave it the terrible-looking name of Macpalxochitlquahuitl, and 

 beside this the Greek name given to it by the scientific botanists looks quite pale and 

 simple. 



The flower is about the same size as our photograph, and consists of a cup-shaped calyx of 

 leathery consistence and a rust-red colour, deeply cleft into five parts. The likeness to a hand is 

 furnished by the five long stamens, which are united towards their base and of a brighter red than 



Photo io] U'rof. K. Frnns. 



A GIANT PLESIOSAUR. 



This photo represents a perfect skeleton of a large PlesiDsaur 

 which was found in the quarries of Holzmaden, in Wurttem- 

 berg. It is a fossil of the Upper l_ia5 formation. 



