Marvels of the Universe 935 
ANCIENT UGLINESS 
BY W. P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S. 
By no stretch of the imagination could Eryops be called beautiful—an interesting beast, however, 
it certainly is. A creature of immense antiquity, and, so far, known only from the Permian formations 
of Texas, it stands at the parting of the ways between the Amphibia 
and their kin—and the Reptiles By some authorities, indeed, it is regarded as a primitive reptile ; 
frogs and toads and newts, 
on the whole, however, the evidence seems to show that it must be regarded as a side branch of the 
group which gave rise to the higher group, which, in turn, gave rise to the mammals at the head 
of which stands Man himself, at once the wisest, and most brutal of all living things. When doctors 
disagree, who shall decide? Let 
us leave the problem of the re- 
lationship of Eryops to other and 
higher groups to those whom it 
may concern, and turn our at- 
tention to the creature itself. ® 
There is something of the 
crocodile in its appearance, and 
this likeness is due to the arma- 
ture of bony, horn-ensheathed 
plates which covered its body, as 
well as to the shape of the head. 
From the short, massive, twisted 
character of the upper bone of 
the fore-limbs we may infer that @ 
Eryops was an aquatic beast, 
which lived in burrows on the 
banks of the streams in which, 
doubtless, it swarmed. At any 
rate, this upper bone agrees very 
closely with that of creatures so 
unlike as the extinct beaver, Tro- 
gonotherium, and the living 
Duck- billed Platypus. Both 
these are aquatic types, and since 
we know the Duck-billed Platy- 
pus, or Ornithorhynchus, to be 
a burrower, and the modern 
beavers are burrowers, we may 
fairly infer that Eryops was no 
less skilled as a digger. About 
the coat of bony mail we have 
no doubt, for samples thereof 
have been found with the bones 
of the skeleton. From the — Photody} ae. [S. L. Bastin. 
teeth, and the fashion of the The Broom cadlleike ite at ae yee ie doe dhar sty Ml on Good 
skull, we gather that Eryops was which is not overshadowed by the parent stem and the young plants have a 
chance of growth. On a warm afternoon in early autumn a continuous crackle 
a near relation of those strange 
caused by explosions of the ripened pods will be heard in the vicinity of a Broom. 
