Dinosaurs | Page 7

the feet, prove the
carnivorous habits of these dinosaurs. The well-finished joints, dense
texture of the hollow bones and strongly marked muscle-scars indicate
that they were active and powerful beasts of prey. They range from

small slender animals up to the gigantic Tyrannosaurus equalling the
modern elephant in bulk. They were half lizard, half bird in proportions,
combining the head, the short neck and small fore limbs and long snaky
tail of the lizard with the short, compact body, long powerful hind
limbs and three-toed feet of the bird. The skin was probably either
naked or covered with horny scales as in lizards and snakes; at all
events it was not armor-plated as in the crocodile.[4] They walked or
ran upon the hind legs; in many of them the fore limbs are quite
unfitted for support of the body and must have been used solely in
fighting or tearing their prey.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Hind Limb of Allosaurus, Dr. J.L. Wortman
standing to one side. Dr. Wortman is one of the most notable and
successful collectors of fossil vertebrates and was in charge of the
Museum's field work in this department from 1891-1898.]
The huge size of some of these Mesozoic beasts of prey finds no
parallel among their modern analogues. It is only among marine
animals that we find predaceous types of such gigantic size. But among
the carnivorous dinosaurs we fail to find any indications of aquatic or
even amphibious habits. They might indeed wade in the water, but they
could hardly be at home in it, for they were clearly not good swimmers.
We must suppose that they were dry land animals or at most swamp
dwellers.
Dinosaur Footprints. The ancestors of the Theropoda appear first in the
Triassic period, already of large size, but less completely bipedal than
their successors. Incomplete skeletons have been found in the Triassic
formations of Germany[5] but in this country they are chiefly known
from the famous fossil footprints (or "bird-tracks" as they were at first
thought to be), found in the flagstone quarries at Turner's Falls on the
Connecticut River, in the vicinity of Boonton, New Jersey, and
elsewhere. These tracks are the footprints of numerous kinds of
dinosaurs, large and small, mostly of the carnivorous group, which
lived in that region in the earlier part of the Age of Reptiles, and much
has been learned from them as to the habits of the animals that made
them. The tracks ascribed to carnivorous dinosaurs run in series with

narrow tread, short or long steps, here and there a light impression of
tail or forefoot and occasionally the mark of the shank and pelvis when
the animal settled back and squatted down to rest a moment. The
modern crocodiles when they lift the body off the ground, waddle
forward with the short limbs wide apart, and even the lizards which run
on their hind legs have a rather wide tread. But these dinosaurs ran like
birds, setting one foot nearly in front of the other, so that the prints of
right and left feet are nearly in a straight line. This was on account of
their greater length of limb, which made it easy for them to swing the
foot directly underneath the body at each step like mammals and birds,
and thus maintain an even balance, instead of wabbling from side to
side as short legged animals are compelled to do.
Of the animals that made these innumerable tracks the actual remains
found thus far in this country are exceedingly scanty. Two or three
incomplete skeletons of small kinds are in the Yale Museum, of which
Anchisaurus is the best known.
Megalosaurus. Fragmentary remains of this huge carnivorous dinosaur
were found in England nearly a century ago, and the descriptions by
Dean Buckland and Sir Richard Owen and the restorations due to the
imaginative chisel of Waterhouse Hawkins, have made it familiar to
most English readers. Unfortunately it was, and still remains, very
imperfectly known. It was very closely related to the American
Allosaurus and unquestionably similar in appearance and habits.[6]
ALLOSAURUS.
The following extract is from the American Museum Journal for
January 1908.[7]
"Although smaller than its huge contemporary Brontosaurus, this
animal is of gigantic proportions being 34 feet 2 inches in length, and 8
feet 3 inches high."
[Illustration: Fig. 11.--MOUNTED SKELETON OF ALLOSAURUS
IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM. After Osborn]

History of the Allosaurus Skeleton. "This rare and finely preserved
skeleton was collected by Mr. F.F. Hubbell in October 1879, in the
Como Bluffs near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the richest locality in
America for dinosaur skeletons, and is a part of the great collection of
fossil reptiles, amphibians and fishes gathered together by the late
Professor E.D. Cope, and presented to the American Museum in 1899
by President Jesup.
"Shortly after the