SOME PREHISTORIC ANIMALS
“Fossil remains of all sorts of animals, from the largest to the
smallest, are found embedded in stone. There are lizards which, if
alive, would hardly find room enough to turn around in many of our
public squares, so monstrous is their size; tortoises with shell as
large as a small boat; fishes of strange formation; birds of a singular
character such as we no longer behold; and enormous quadrupeds that
would dwarf to insignificance our sturdy ox. All flying creatures of
the air, all walking and creeping animals of the earth, every form of
life swimming in the water, are represented in these fossil remains
found in the heart of our rocks, but of a shape and often of a size
very different from those of our living animals.
“These ancient creatures have never been seen alive by man, so far back
in the past is their period. After inhabiting the earth for a very long
time, they disappeared forever, to give place to other species. What
remains of them consists chiefly of bones, which from their hardness
and their mineral character offer the most resistance to the various
destructive agencies. With the sole aid of these bones science succeeds
in reconstructing the exact form of the animal. It also tells us what
the animal fed on and what were its habits. By a miracle of sagacity it
resuscitates, so to speak, the ancient, dislocated carcass, and makes
it live again to the mind’s eye.
“Fossil bones are commonly found embedded in stone quarried at
considerable depths; it needs the work of pick and chisel and hammer to
free them from the rock. How did they come to be there? In the same way
as shells. If the creature lived in the waters of a lake or of the sea,
the mud at the bottom covered the body after death. If it lived on
land, the floods swept away its carcass and bore it to the river, which
in turn carried it to lake or ocean. Later the lake dried up or the
ocean receded, and the hardened clay left behind became the stone
whence to-day are obtained the relics of prehistoric forms of animal
life.
“What, then, were these prehistoric forms of animal life that preceded
man? Regarding ourselves as related to the animals provided with bones,
a sort of inner framework sustaining the corporeal edifice, we may say
in a general way that there has been a gradual succession from lower to
higher in structure. First appeared the fishes, then came the reptiles,
next the birds, after them the quadrupeds, suckling their young, and
last of all man, placed above all the rest by his incomparable
endowments.
“Let us glance rapidly at some examples of the ancient denizens of land
and sea. Look at this picture. The back of the creature here
represented resembles a little, in its form and in its regular rows of
scales, the tail of a fish; but the front—to what can that be likened?
What is the meaning of those large bony plaques arranged side by side
like the squares in a tessellated pavement? The animal is armed with
coat of mail, perhaps to protect itself from the bite of an enemy.
“What is the purpose of those wing-like appendages that strike the
flanks? Of what use are those two short horns at the base of the
forehead? What sort of a creature can it be that thus singularly
combines in its structure the tail of a fish, the shell of a tortoise,
the featherless wings of a bird, and the nascent horns of a ram? You
will never guess the answer, so different is the creature from any that
are known to you. It is a fish, but such a fish as no frying-pan of
ours has ever had acquaintance with, nor does the ocean now hold any
more like it.
“It goes back to the earliest ages of the world, and is called the
pterichthys. Do not exclaim at this name, as strange to our ears as the
creature itself to our eyes. Translated into our tongue, it means a
winged fish. But did this fish of former ages really fly? Assuredly
not. It was too heavy, too massive, to admit of that. Its wings were
simply admirable fins for swimming.
“In the seas of our day there live certain fishes fitted for flying.
Their lateral fins, which are very long, open like large fans and
enable them to sustain themselves for some time in the air. Pressed too
hard by a pursuing foe, they escape by leaping out of the water and
flying over the waves, clearing a certain distance before plunging
again into the water, as they must when their fins begin to get dry and
to lose their suppleness. They are called flying fishes. Compare these
two pictures and you will see how greatly the present flying fish
differs from the ancient winged fish.
“And this other creature—what wild dream could have conceived such a
monstrosity? It has the head and neck of a plucked bird; and it also
has a bird’s beak, but an enormous one armed with pointed teeth in each
mandible. Its wings are those of a bat, one talon of each claw being
disproportionately elongated and serving as support to a wide membrane,
much as an umbrella-rib holds the stretched fabric of the cover. Its
other talons are free and are furnished with hooked nails.
“The hind legs and feet are those of the lizard. The body is covered
with fine scales, is marbled with touches of a darker color, and ends
in an abbreviated tail. Take away from this strange animal its bat’s
wings, its long neck and its bird’s head, and you will have something
closely resembling the lizard, the creature that basks in the sun on
old walls, or that other one, larger and all green, which gives us a
start when it scuttles away among the dead leaves or in the dense
growth of the hedge.”
“And was it a lizard, then, or a bird?” asked Emile.
“It was a reptile, certainly,” was the reply, “and it might be called a
sort of lizard. There were several species, varying from the size of a
lark to that of a crow. Like the bat, the animal left its retreat in
the hollow of rocks and came out at night to flutter awkwardly about in
the air by the aid of its wings of stretched skin. With its toothed
beak it snapped up in their flight immense dragon-flies, the chief
insects of that time. Its hunger appeased, it took its repose on the
ground, wings folded against its sides, body supported by the hind
legs; or else it hung down from the rocks, suspended by its claws. Its
name is pterodactyl, which means wing-fingered.
“Let us consider another of these prehistoric creatures. This time it
is a bird, and what a marvelous bird, too, my friends! Its beak, no
less monstrous than that of the pterodactyl, had likewise the two
mandibles armed with a ferocious-looking set of teeth. Pointed teeth in
the jaws of a reptile, such as a lizard, crocodile, or serpent, are
nothing extraordinary; but in a bird’s mouth, that is unheard-of.
To-day one would search in vain all over the earth for anything like
it. There are beaks of all shapes and sizes, there are short ones and
long ones, straight ones and crooked ones, strong ones and weak ones;
but all are toothless, as are the hen’s and the sparrow’s. What a
singular custom in the primitive bird, to adopt for beak the toothed
jaws of the reptile!
“And that is not all. This bird adopted also the reptile’s tail, but
covered it with feathers. Birds of the present day have a short, wide
rump, from which grow a dozen coarse feathers. The first bird in the
order of time had its tail composed of a long succession of little
bones, each supporting two feathers. Here is a picture of that tail
just as it was found in the rock where the strange creature left its
remains. The bird to which the tail belonged is called by the learned
an archæopteryx, or ancient winged animal.
“One more of these monsters, and that will suffice. The animal that you
see here is the mammoth, a sort of enormous shaggy elephant, so tall
that its back would have touched the ceiling in most of our great
halls. Its height was as much as six meters. By its side the ordinary
elephant, the largest of extant terrestrial animals, would look no
larger than a sheep beside an ox.
“Its tusks, which had a pronounced backward curve, measured four meters
in length and weighed as much as four hundred and eighty pounds each.
What must have been the strength of a colossus carrying between its
lips a weight of nine hundred pounds as easily as a cat carries the
hairs of its mustaches!
“Man was already in existence at the time of the mammoth. Armed with
sharp flint-stones and bone-pointed arrows, he made bold to attack the
enormous animal whose weight made the earth tremble. He hunted it in
the chase and feasted on its flesh. What a piece of game when the giant
fell into the deep ditch masked by a light covering of boughs and
foliage! The victim was then overwhelmed with masses of rock, after
which there was an interminable banquet for the whole tribe.
“Let us go no further, but merely say in conclusion that the animals of
to-day are not the same as those of former ages. Long before the
present species on land and in the sea, there gradually made their
appearance other very different forms of animal life, which have now
become extinct. Nowhere on the earth are there now living any creatures
like those that have left their fossil remains for our inspection.”