Show NOT ALL scientists THROW LIGHT ON prehistoric ANIMALS beasts of burden of today to day in many instances are larger than their ancestors we know as cepres nta lives of the past the study of the remains ot extinct has brought to light alcona other curious things the tact that in general the animals ot the past that survive in developed types were m ich smaller than their descendants are to day even some ot the tremendous sam fans which loob nightmares in the drawings reconstructing them the plesiosaurus for illustration were much smaller than several existing species of whale this Is not true however ot the ancestor ot the shark the mega ladon a savage leviathan that measured feet in length neither Is it true of the an of the modern kangaroo and wombat whose progenitor the depro todon was as big as the largest or a small elephant in a book intended tor children but ot a character so instructive and en that older children are like ly to be fascinated by it prot E ray of a giant marsupial and that of a man lankester director ot the natural his tory departments ot the british muse um has clearly shown the relation ship of some modern mammals with the peculiar animals whose remains are found in old strata and drawn some interesting comparisons prof lankester s book entitled extinct animals published in this country by henry holt co Is not solely de voted to the monsters of a million or so years ago but to a vivid recon alon of some of the creatures found in the mesozoic and tertiary systems all of these were not of course mon indeed some of the earliest mammal remains found are exceeding ly small it is a big mistake says prof lankester to conclude that it Is a law of nature that recent animals are all small and insignificant as corn pared with their representatives of the past that Is simply not true re cent horses are bigger than extinct ones and much bigger than the three toed and four toed ancestors of forsea recent elephants are as big as that have existed and much bigger than the earlier elephantine ancestors it Is true that there were enor reptiles in the past tar larger than any living crocodiles standing fourteen feet at the loins and ceasur ing eighty feet from the tip of the snout to the tip of the tall but their bodies did not weigh much more than that of a big african elephant and were small compared with whales although evolutionists have not yet been able to complete the lines ot ancestors of man the ancestry of the horse Is believed to be completely accounted tor the big draught horse and the swift race horse are descend ants of a little animal that lived a few million years ago that was no larger than a fox the remains of this curl ous animal have been found in the eocene it had tour toes on its front feet and three on its hind feet the modern horse it should be kemem bared walks on single toes the others having practically disappeared many of the extinct monster were herbivorous animals this Is true of some of the great dinosaurs which measured from fifty to eighty feet in length there were others however tor instance which was not quite as large but for all that a very ugly and ferocious beast that could successfully attack the giant brontosaurus and lay him low it Is not definitely known that man existed in the days of the great dinosaurs but he Is known to have been on earth ancestor of the horse not larger than a big dog as a contemporary of the mammoth this great creature which was a branch of the elephant was not so large as Is popularly believed from numerous remains of skeletons it Is known that the mammoth was little larger than an indian elephant which Is smaller than his african cousin philadelphia ledger |