The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-05-24

the Canary Islands which he estimated
as consisting of 225, 900 of individ-
uals. On the Newfoundland and Lotto
den banks more than S25, 900, 900 of cod
fish are taken annually.
If the struggle for existence did
not rule this world, these figures would
be tiny compared with what the fruit
fulness of organic nature could pro-
duce Darwin calculated that If the
elephant, the least productive of all
the animals of the world, were left UNI
disturbed by nature and man for 200
wears. the descendants of one pair OF
elephants would number 19,OOOOOO
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 ichthyosaurus. So we
need not picture the Jurassic sea as a
Mace crowded with ichthyosaurians as
a springtime pond is filled with polly
wogs" Rather, the beasts must nave
gathered for distinct reasons in certain
limited localities, generation after gen.
Grafton.
Herd of IchthyOsaurians.
A whimsical picture, certainly, must
have been such a herd of swimming
lizards"
The long. pointed heads carried
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 America
that also had such teeth in just
such burrows.
Specially, as with no other ami
NAL created before or since, started the
eye of the ichthysosaurus. That i'm
sod not only the
huge eye socket itself, but a surround
ing hard ring of movable bony plates,
that acted like a most ingenious pair
of spectacles, charging or diminish
ing the pupil of the eye at will.
To make room for the google eyes,
the brain was small-a reptile brain
is a still lower stage of development
than that of our whales, which are
not a genuine fish, but merely man
mails that have adapted themselves
magnificently to oceanic existence.
Without doubt the ichthyosaurus
was a Replica lizard in the broader
sense of the term.
Neither young nor old specimens
betray any vestige of gills. The fish
bone-like, but immensely strong ribs,
| speak clearly for an energetic lung
action with the fully developed faculty
for holding a large supply of air in
the CnCSL LOT the puIpOSCS VI eulN ms
However, one may view the ichthy-
osaurus, 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 ap-
| paratus; and, in truth, everything that
we are doing in this line to-day Is
| only a grouping experiment as COM
| pared with what the process of "adap-
| Tor did in the qnflnnitV of
time for the beasts Of the Jurassic Sea.
The most beautiful of swimming APP
| pliances 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
! different entirely. The leg has become
| a true fin almost throughout. This
| fin is supported by the short, thick
! bone of the thigh. Thence downward
| everything-shank, foot and toes-fs
resolved into more or less loose bony
segments that lie beddedpin soft flesh.
| Sometimes we find as many as a hun
dred of these bones. and when we
count them exactly and try to order
them into toes, we get not five, but
six, even eight and nine such toes,
naturally making the "paw-fiipper"
! immensely more broad and powerful
| for swimming purposes.
| The ichthyosaurus had no armor.
In this many Dragons of his time
were far superior to him. He was only
slightly scaled so slightly that to the
| eye he appeared merely hs a creature
| with a somewhat wrinkled skin.
But if he lacked scales, he had a
more striking popularity in entirely
| loose flesh fins that he possessed in
addition to his f1ippers.
Ignorance of these flesh fins, which
naturally had not been preserved like
the bones, made it a mighty difficult
job for the early investigators to i'm
agine how the animal whose skeleton
they had, really appeared in life.
Triumph of Human Deduction.
Remember how many cloaks and
coverings make for the completed APP
pearance of any creature, all of which
disappear long before the slow course
of petrefaction begins the process of
preservation. How different a plucked
chicken looks from a living one. 1t is
as if the very features that made it dis
tinctive had been taken away. Now,
suppose in addition skin, flesh, all ex-
ternal appendages like comb and vat
ties were missing-who is so inventive
as to be able to invent the type chick
en- by working backwards from the
skeleton? And vet the ichthyosaurus
has been thus searched out by keen
| brains.
Old Richard Owen. in England, a
fine observer and an anatomical logi-
clan of the first rank, was first to get
the idea that the ichthyosaurus must
have had a great caudal fin like our
| whale.
1t was a simple circumstance that
made him think so. Every specimen