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Show K ' MAGAZINE SECTION Sunday, May 16, 1920 Times as --BWater Fowl It Had an Extraordinary Helmet of Bone on Its Head Wmck Stumps Scientists to Explain ' Twentyrfive-Hundrec- L u , ' ' ,, UST across the American border la Alberta, Canada, 10,000,000 year years ago. Nature carefully Impressed upon a soft, plastlo rock the complete skeleton and bodily outlines of a gigantic preature which was a sort of prehistoric duck, more than thirty feet In length. The remains of that creature hare been carefully and 'painstakingly brought to New Tork and placed In the American Museum of Natural History, And If the distinguished curator and hlsxassl8tanta from the museum had been present 10,000.-00- 0 years ago to superintend that Job of preserving the fossil remains of that monster the work could have scarcely been done better than it was performed at that ancient day bjr the processes of nature. It was not merely a bundle oft bones scattered about It was, as shown In the photograph above, a wonderfully perfect Job, and the geologists were so fortunate as to find not only the outline o' Uie creatures body, but also 13 be able to study the texture, t.jjrk-nes- s and quality of Its skin, and to see that the skin bad tubeyleg on the sides, back and talL Tbe monster duck was a dinosaur. It was an aquatic animal vlth wonderfully powerful hind for swimming; legs, but since its body weighed about the tons and was too heavy to lift Into the air. It Jiad to dispense with' der. With tail, front and hind feet all working,' tbe wings, and in the place of flying .machinforward small Belly Riyer duck must have some ery had developed moved through the water swimming legs. spee- ddinosaur lived in what with considerable This duck-bille- d five tons is no of mead though Cretaceous period Is called the Upper to the about named , been has and weight push era Mesozoic the . Id Cretaceous times, of Corythosanrus Casuarius. The word course, there were no ducks means helmeted, and tbe word Casuarius is tbe same as cassowary, a as we know them now. The order of reptiles was still modern bird which still exists in Africa head. Its on dominant; the ancestors of creBt a and has bony our ' modern crocodiles, Hz-Scientists have looked long aqd wopder-trglat this ancient bonehead, and nobody ards, snakes and turtles peo-pled the earth. Fishes were , is able to satisfactorily account for such small and but slightly devela dome of bone. .Neither is tbe bony helunderoped. Birds bad Just begun cassowary met of the to evolve from flying lizards stood. The bird has been studied with much interest hy ornithologists, but bas and still possessed teeth. ' never shown that it makes use of its heavy Animals were Just beginning to appear and were all marskull for any purpose whatever. If it was ' of any use or special value in jges long' supials. carrying their young fasti abandoned in the after Ion bas using It pouches entirely gone by , its thick cranium for any such purpose in of opossums. It was millions ' , modern times. Therefore, the modern Cat- - of years before the earliest ? sowary and the bonebead of tbq ancient man lived. " gigantic cassowary are a scientific puzzle. J . So Corythosaurus Casuar- are whose was remains . CreIn duck lug the ancient duck, the The now In New York, formerly lived. near Hie taceous scheme of things., town of Red Deer, In Alberta. Canada. The, His front legs, In the patient process of skeleton was found in an outcropping rock evolution, werebeglnfllng to change into stratum of the Cretaceous period, which wings as the centuries passed-- . The fingers were lengthening and spreading, while the the scientists .call the Belly River Forma Tbe specimen was found by Mr. length of tbe limb decreased. The heavy tlon. Barnum Brown, of the American Museum. covering was changing Into membrane, the scales .were softening, dropping off. In Nearby was found a less complete but similar skeleton perhaps, the creatures short, Corythosaurus was getting ready to mate. Both fossils were carefully packed . ' wings. sprout and brought to New York. But the hind legs were changing In a From the bones of Corytbosaurus Casuarius and the impression of Its body In tbn . .different way. The heavy , pads were' shrinking from the toes, there was less rock, tbe paleontologists, of tbe American walking and more swimming as time went Museum are able not only to reconstruct on. Every sign pointed to the merging of tbe body of the great, duck, but to learn many details of its manner of living and the walking, swimming lizard into the The bug swimming, waddling, flying bird, the duck. that of the creatures duck-bil- l habits Were already those of a duck. and the teeth adapted to grindHe lived Jn the river and the brackish ing rather than cutting show that it was waters of the lagoon on the eastern shore herbivorous and did not prey upon its felof the continent that extended over a great low dinosaurs. TBe feet were webbed for portion of what Is no the Pacific Ocean. swimming,, and the hind feet. In addition, Glaciers mere not to sprea'd over the earth were covered with fleefiy pads arranged for millions of years and tbi climate of in lobes, showing that it walked as well as sam. Dinosaurs In general, and Cory .what Is now Canada wb's tropical In temthosanrna In particular, were among the perature and vegetation. There were first bipeds, the first creatures (0 stand tree and a upright on two feet and move about. species of the palm, and among these the Impressions of tbe tendons that moved Bally River duck made Its nest Here he tbe tail are clearly visible, and from their paddled about In the slime or those moist, position, and other features of Its con- - hot days, eating an occasional frog or turstruction, It ts plain that the tall was powtle, but making bis diet otherwise wholly erful enough to be used for propelling the vegetarian, and constantly fleeing from the In the water, much after,the fashion fellow creatures that preyed oipon him. body of a elngle acull worked from the stern For the Belly River duck waa probably of a boat, in addition to serving as a rud- - very good hunting, at far as t V The Modern Species of Whoso Head Slightly Resembles the Ancient Creature of Bygone Days. Photo by Elwin R. Sanborn, New Duck York Zoological Society. grenade or a whaler's harpoon gun. At any rate, If the ' modern - shotgun - shell were to be made In a size proportionate .with that of that ancient duck It would jesemble a cylindrical hand web-foote- d Cory-thesaur- , y well-know- n . lr grenade filled with marbles. Tbe expense of making decoys. one hundred to a set, and each thirty feet long, "would take the sport out of the popular class and place It on a par with that of maintaining a wine cellar. And what ert of retriever could 'be found to swim after five tons of dead duck and bring t safely back to the blind t So from the point of view of the sportsman, perhaps It la Just a well that tbe modern , duck is smaller than the '' ( iv i River specimen. But If Belly "' y J thirty-foducks were- as Photograph of a Prehistoric Skeleton Being Un numerous sow as are their covered in Its Bed Where smaller descendants, the V , f f? It Had Reposed for Milstatus of our food supply end ' lions of Years. of tbe cost of living might ' ... V. well be quite different.-Islow 1 all probability the flesh of Corytna adapting f themselves. saurus Casuarius waa edible, according to SJt W-result was Dr. Matthew and Mr. Granger, of tbe mu- , The Inevitable. Of the seum, or would have Ven If 44 ft j 4 any of us had the countless vari- been there to eat it It fed upon much the same things as does the duck of V. , eties of reptiles ... V'- i i f dinosaurs ..if so far as paleontologists can tell, the that and, .Inhabited the concerned, Tbe flesh was not nearly ao coarse as earth and dominatmight be Pythonomorph ed it in the Cretaexpected. It la a curious fact tbst ihe sea serpent ceous period only gralq of flesh does not increase In coarseBrontosaurus, crocodile, ness with the size of the animal. The snakes, Diplodocu lizards and turtles hugest thing that ever lived is the sulphur the row remain. Many peclally .huge, bottom whple, and Its fl'jsh Is not much of the ancient repTyrannoSavage coarser than beef. So with tbe elephant. tiles disappeared saurus Rex, relSome And a neat little tidbit for tbe larder It altogether. ished a mess of bad already would be. For North American duck of evolved Info birds. Corythosaurus Cathose days But weighed five tons or more, or suarius Just as we Corytbor.urus 10.000 pounds. Casuarid harmA d tame duck delight in a tenless, helpless as be will provide a meal for three people. der breast, of duck. . ' was lived to see Therefore, the monster duck was equivaHe could not yet , almost all of hist lent to 2.50Q ducki and a fly to escape-thetnenemies but even if bh brigade of 7.500 people could have dined on engulfed In the mists that It to satiety. could there were Folail Egg from the Museum of Natural At the prevailing average The History. Mesoof 55 cents a pound It would have the separate price the Pteranodon Monster Duck's Egg Was About 4 Feet Long and Would zoic Age from the cost merely $3,500. and the PteroCompare with the Modem Ducks Egg About as the Little Then he And the creatures egg waa probably Eocene, dactyl, huge flying-- , set abour'in earn- three and one-baEgg Above Compares with the Big Fossil. or four feet long, the reptiles, that probest to become a equivalent of 4,750 modern duck ably pounced down eggs. duck. Duck eggs are not aa popular as hens on Corytbosaurus from above and made the helmeted the duck, original bonehead, as as survived did he but he still long work eggs, 80 80 sell to at of him. cents a quick Perhaps they bad many enemies. dozen. At 83 cent a dozens each Betty - because there were no-- ports men in those But If he , Upon and buRiedeven a missing link ' River duck egg, the equivalent of 398 dozen was not times. There ' high, by his fellow creatures, be was to have (fleen or a cave-maarmed with stone club to modern eggs, would be north $338.60, and P,r like thumbs stirk lng out pt right . his revenge, for nature was taking her lie in wait fop the Belly River duck and a dozen of them would cost $4,033.20. I angles from the palm. Crocodiles had de- courR6 and mammala were lowly dev try tbe weight of bis club against the Rather a dainty omelette, tern. veloped valves at tbe back of the tongue oping to the point where ; they would gain and could drown their bony crest. A modern shotgun would not But that was millions of years ago, and without harm the ascendency over pify The tubercle-coverereptile. twilight to themselves. Mosasauts sea lizards have penetrated his thick, neither duck nor egg survives, at least tbe Mesozoic Age. tbe day of repti ea, hide. bad reached a length of fifty feet, and, no of nothing but the fossil skeletoh of the duck had been reached. The reptile boom vraa r The would have to change his been found. In tbs museum Is a bugs doubt, rep up under many a Corytho- - subsiding. The world was and changing, hi armament if Corj thosaurus were alive fossil egg, but It Is not .zaurus and snapped him up Altogether. big enough to hava. JlS. -reptilea were for the most pact tco Very likely he would use a rifle. been laid by that old Alberta duck. lo-- o r. - ot j A' n M van - to-da- four-poun- four-poun- d lf . was-prey- -- g ed n d duck-hunte- to-da- GjxjU UnUln Aixhli Reserved. j -- 4 V -- |