May 13 , 1911 .] 
clown to the Wild Goose ditch, which was shorter 
than the one we were on. At p’aces where we 
stopped for a meal the people always went to 
work cooking a great deal more than we could 
possibly eat, and then did not want to take any¬ 
thing for their trouble. 
At one lone miner’s cabin we were shown his 
copper prospect and presented with samples of 
the ore. On our return he came skiing down 
the hill to invite us up to coffee and hard tack 
again. At the road houses we were loaned guns 
to go after ducks, and several people were ready 
to save us parts of our journey by taking us 
some distance with a dog team. Tramps appear 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
to be a product foreign to Alaska, and in fact 
we met very few people on the trail, usually 
ditchmen busy cleaning out snow. Though we 
relied on “Old Faithful,” as we named the re¬ 
volver, there was no ocasion to call on him ex¬ 
cept for shooting birds. From the time we left 
Nome till we came back, sore-footed and carry¬ 
ing our boots under our arms, and got a lift in 
an oil wagon, every one was more than kind 
to us. 
But if our feet were very, very weary when 
we walked into Nome at nine in the evening, we 
ourselves were not. We were agreed that we 
had enjoyed the finest outing that travelers any¬ 
731 
where cou d possibly have. The greatest advan¬ 
tage was that we had twenty-four hours of day¬ 
light. If it had not been for this we might 
have been afraid to start on such a trip, know¬ 
ing that the roadhouses were often some dis¬ 
tance apart, and that we would be in places 
where it would be impossible to travel after 
dark. Following the trail for ourselves gave 
a zest to our journey that it could never have 
had for us if we had gone by train or in any 
other way than tramping, and as we sang the 
praises of Alaska’s natural beauties, we con¬ 
gratulated ourselves on belonging to a country 
where such a trip as ours was possible. 
Dragons of Ancient Times. 
A few million years ago—if it is permitted 
to guess in such figures—a great shallow ocean 
ran north from what is now the Gulf of Mexico 
over the Western plains, perhaps far beyond the 
northern border of the present United States. 
Its western boundary was low land, perhaps then 
only a chain of islands standing where now 
stand the Rocky Mountains. Its eastern shores 
were lands lying west and south of the region 
now occupied by the Great Lakes. 
In this great shallow Mediterranean sea lived 
a vast number of strange animals like nothing 
that we know to - day. 
There were strange turtles 
of large size, great lizards, 
enormous sea serpents—as 
they may be called for lack 
of a better name—but with 
legs which were a little like 
the paddles of a whale. 
On these waters swam a 
large bird, bigger than a 
loon, wingless and with 
teeth set in sockets in the 
jaws, as the teeth of an 
alligator or crocodile are 
set in its jaws. Over the 
crests of the waves long¬ 
winged birds, also w T ith teeth in their jaws, 
winged their way, and no doubt diving from on 
high, preyed upon the tiny fishes that sought 
the warm sun near the water’s surface. 
It is impossible for us to picture the life of 
those days because we know of nothing with 
which that life may be compared-—because no 
birds or animals like those then existing are now 
found on the earth’s surface, or so far as we 
can tell in its waters. 
Of all the strange creatures that lived over 
and near that sea in Cretaceous times, none was 
more unlike the animals that we know of than 
the pterodactyls of that day. These pterodactyls 
were flying reptiles, but were not much like the 
dragons of the story books of the children. If 
we can imagine an enormous bat with a small 
body, an absurdly long head, and with great 
wings which in different species had a spread 
of from ten to twenty feet, we shall get per¬ 
haps as good an idea as can be had of these 
strange beasts. 
These animals were called pteranodons, and as 
their name implies, were toothless. The great 
skull, three feet long, was made up for about one- 
half its length of a beak or mandible in front 
of the eyes, and for nearly as great a length 
behind the eyes of an immovable bony crest. 
1 he brain must have been exceedingly small. 
The purpose of the enormous crest running out 
back of the eyes was presumably to give attach¬ 
ment to certain muscles, and the great bill—the 
creature’s mouth—was used in capturing its prey, 
no doubt small fishes perhaps somewhat in the 
way in which fishes are taken by the long-winged 
black skimmer, a bird of our Southern Atlantic 
coast, which skims low over the water, the under 
mandible cutting through the water and seizing 
the small prey that may be floating on it. Pos¬ 
sibly the pteranodon may have had a pouch like 
a pelican and may have captured its prey as does 
the pelican. 
The bones of these flying dragons were extra¬ 
ordinarily light. Flardly thicker than a sheet of 
paper, they are almost always found in the- chalk 
of Kansas crushed and broken by the weight 
of the earth which lies upon them. 
These pteranodons were first described many 
years ago by the late Prof. O. C. Marsh, who, 
with his parties and by means of collectors 
whom he employed, discovered and collected a 
great many of them. Prof. Marsh did little more 
than describe the species, but one of his succes¬ 
sors, Dr. George F. Eaton, of the Peabody 
Museum of Yale University, has studied the 
great collection of material in that museum, and 
has recently published as one of the Memoirs 
of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and 
Sciences a beautiful volume, which tells vastly 
more than has been known before about these 
astonishing reptiles. Dr. Eaton’s volume is 
strictly technical, and only to be comprehended, 
by an anatomist, but beautiful figures of the 
bones of these reptiles, together with the descrip¬ 
tions which go with them, 
tell to the student of an¬ 
cient life a marvelous story. 
a rain storm near the house, and his mother and 
he watched it for three hours with opera glass 
and telescope at distances of 20, 60, 200 and 500 
feet. They had an opportunity deliberately to 
compare the bird with the good colored plate 
in the Wisconsin Bird Annual, and concluded 
positively that it was a passenger pigeon. 
Clark Univf.rsity, Worcester, Mass., May 3.— 
Editor Forest and Stream: I have just returned 
from a wild-goose mourning dove chase to Pleas¬ 
ant Valley, N. Y. 
The report was weak and was not accompanied 
by the $5 forfeit, and I would not have visited 
the place had I not been on my way to a lecture 
engagement, and had it not been located so to 
speak in John Burroughs’ back wood lot. It 
A KANSAS PTERODACTYL RESTORED BY DR GEORGE F. EATON. 
13 he saw a passenj 
Passenger Pigeons 
Reported. 
From Milwaukee, Wis., 
comes a report of a pas¬ 
senger pigeon having been 
seen. Prof. I. N. Mitchell, 
of the Milwaukee State 
Normal School, recently 
received a letter from John 
E. Melish, of Cottage 
Grove, saying that on April 
er pigeon. It alighted during 
