Omaha daily bee., 1903-05-31

Lofoden banks more than s25. OOO,O 900 of cod
fish are taken annually.
II the struggle tor existence did not
rule this world, these figures would be tiny
compared with what the fruitfulness of
organic nature could produce. Darwin
calculated that IL the elephant, the least
productive of all the animals of the world.
were left undisturbed by nature and man
for 200 years, the descendants of one pair
of elephants would number 1900, 600.
But the battle for existence does exist
and has existed as far back as we can go.
And this great regulating process of nature
exerted it's power in the days of the ichthy-
osaurus. So we need not picture the
Jurasslc sea as a place crowded with ich-
thyosaurians as n springtime pond is filed
with ''pollywogs." Rather, the beasts must
have gathered for distinct reasons in GER
tain limited localities, generation after gem
GRAFTON.
A whimsical picture, certainly, must have
been such a herd of swimming lizards
The long, pointed heads carried powerful
teeth in the beak-like jaws, as much as 200
in number. These curious teeth sat, not
in separate tooth cavities. but in a long
furrow. Later. in the cretaceous period.
there were wonderful birds in North Amer
lea that also had such teeth in jus. such
burrows.
Spectrally, as with no other animal Gre
ated before or since, stared the eye of the
ichthyosaurus That immense eye COM
prised not only the huge eye socket itself,
but a surrounding hard ring of movable
bony plates, thai acted like a most In
genious pair of spectacles, charging or d.
minishing the pupil of the eye at will.
To make room for the google eyes, the
brain was small-a reptile brain Is u still
lower stage Of development than that or
our whales, which are not a genuine ish,
but merely mamma that have adapted
themselves magnifcently to oceanic ex-
istence.
without doubt the ichthyosaurus was a
Replica lizard in the broader sense OF the
term.
Neither young nor old specimens betray
any yestige of gills. The fishbone-like,
but immensely strong ribs speak clearly
for an energetic lung action, with the tuily
developed faculty tof holding a large sap
ply of air in the chest for the purpose OF
diving.
However one may view the chthyosaurus
he proves to be a marvel of practical
anatomic construction. 1t has been said'
and with justice, that no engineer OF our
thinking and brooding time could improve
this apparatus; ana, IN uuth' SNSAJ 'hS
that we are doing in this line today Is
only a cropping experiment as compared
with what the process OF adaptation dc
in the gray antiquity of time for the
beasts of the Jurassic sea.
The most beautiful CT swimming appl-
arces were the legs. Let the reader think
of an ordinary lizard leg. In the main
points It resembles our own-with upper
thigh. shank and foot that is formed OF
a root or parent limb and five toes.
With the ichthyosaurus the case Is diff
ferent entirely. The leg has become a tru'
fin almost throughout. This fin is sup
ported by the short, thick bone OF u'
thigh. Thence downward everything -
shank. foot and toes-is resolved into more
or less loose bony segments that lie beddet
in soft flesh. Sometimes w find as many
as a hundred of these bones, and when W.
count these exactly and try to order then
into toes, we get not five, but six. ever
eight and nine such toes, naturally making
the "paw-fipper'' immensely more broa6
and powerful for swimming purposes.
The ichthyosaurus had no armor.
In this many dragons of his time wer'
far superior to him. He was on'y slight!
scaled, so slightly that to the eye he ap
what wrinkled skin.
But IL he lacked scales. he had a NOR
striking popularity in entirely loose iesl
fins that he possessed in addition to hi
fippers.
Ignorance of these flesh fms, which nat