768 Marvels of the Universe 
occasioned something more than a mere diversion if encountered when bathing or boating, for they 
were, most of them, more or less aquatic in their habits. 
Measured by the Dinosaur standard, the Duck-billed Dragon, Trachodon, or Thespesius, as it 
is variously called, was a beast of medium size, attaining a length of about thirty feet and a height 
of twelve or thirteen feet. All that we know of this creature has been gleaned from specimens 
collected during the last forty years or so from the Laramie Sandstone of Montana and the Upper 
Cretaceous of Wyoming, U.S.A., and to-day that knowledge is almost as complete as we can ever 
hope to make it. 
Briefly, the Duck-billed Dragon flourished towards the end of the Great Age of Reptiles ; it 
was indeed one of the last surviving species of its race. In its skeleton it presents several very 
remarkable characters, and a high degree of specialization, a feature which has proved the undoing 
of so many types in the past. From its appearance during life it must well have deserved to rank 
Sy 
Photo by] (LH. J, Shepstone. 
THE DUCK-BILLED DINOSAUR. 
These mummified remains, from which the enveloping cast of the Dinosaur’s skin was obtained, must have been rapidly 
embedded in fine river sand and clay: not, however, before the decomposition of the dead Dinosaur had set in, for the skin had 
already shrunk away from the bones. 
as a Dragon, albeit one of the harmless type. Its body seems to have been covered with a tough 
hide studded with irregular bony plates capped by horn, much as in crocodiles to-day, but of a 
more irregular shape. Its method of locomotion was bipedal, though, like the kangaroos, the 
forelegs were doubtless used to support the body as occasion demanded, as when feeding on shore. 
The upright carriage, as might be supposed, made a great demand on the muscles, especially those 
of the loins and the base of the tail; and these were supplemented by tendons like great steel 
bands, but flexible as no steel can ever be. This we know because the central portion of these bands 
became converted into bony rods, and these have been found in plenty associated with the skeleton. 
We find precisely similar bony rods in the tendons of a fowl’s feet and the lower end of the “ drum- 
stick.” The forelegs could have been but little used ; they served, perhaps, to convey food to 
the mouth, and, as we have suggested, on occasion to support the fore-part of the body. As a 
consequence, they were degenerate, not only in size, but also in the fact that the number of fingers 
was reduced to three, and a little more thana vestige of a fourth. When swimming, the body must 
