Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1920-01-15
EXTINCT BIG GAME
Hunting Used to he Worth While
In Alberta

In Alberta
Speaking of the brontosaurus, il any
one ever did. one might paraphase Gelett
Burgess:
Il never saw a dinOsaur
/ never hoped to see one
Yet, according to reports accredited to
NJ. Capell, Belgian explorer, a live dino
saur, brontosaurus. has been found in
Africa.
Now that the dinosaur is with US.
potentially, big game enthusiasts will be
interested in this description of pre-
historic big game. quoted from a COM
munication to the National Geographic
society by Barnum Brown:
To-day we must go to Africa for the
biggest game; but there was a time in
the dim distant past when America pro-
duced animals larger than any now liv-
ing. That was so long ago that nothing
remains of these creatures except their
bones, and they are turned to stone.
The animals are dinosaurs; for the
moment We will call them lizards-not the
creeping, crawling kind, but huge rep
tiles that stalked upright through the
jungles. rivaling in size the elephant,
the hippopotamus, and the rhnoceros
The place is Alberta, Canada. and the
In these marshes of prehistoric times
dwelt a host Of reptiles, some large, some
small, and Of various forms, flesh heaters
and herb-eaters, but all sharing certain
characters in common and known as
dinosaurs Not any were closely related
to any living reptile, yet they had some
characters common to the lizards. croco-
dies and birds.
"Of the kinds characteristic of the
period one species an herb-eater named
Trachodon. was more than 30 feet long
! and about Is feet high when standing
erect. Its head, with broadly expanded
mouth, resembles that Of a duck, but
back of the beak there are more than
1000 small teeth, disposed in many verti-
cal rows, each containing several indi-
vidual teeth, the new ones coming up
from below as the old ones wore out.
The long hind legs terminated in three
large hoofed toes, and the shorter, slender
front feet were partly webbed. A long,
thin slender tail acted as powerful
swimming organ, and the body was COW
cred with rough tuberculate skin. Hav-
, ing no means of defense, II lived chiefly
in the water, where it was free from
attacks of the iesh-eaters.
Along the shores lived Ornithomimus.
Of the most remarkable Of the dinosaurs.
A skeleton found in 1918 shows it to
have been a toothless creature. the jaws
sheathed like the beak Of bird.
THE bones We're light and pneumatic
like those OF birds, but the skeleton
closely resembles that Of the flesh eat
ing dinosaurs. 1t was about IL feet in
length, with long, slender hind legs and
shorter from. legs. This was an agile
! creature. different from the typical flesh
eaters In feeding habits and doubtless
shore-living type that may have fed
on crustaceans.
ION land there were hoofcd quad
rupedal herbivorous kinds, some, like
Monoclonus, having an immense skull,
six feet in length. with three horns, a
short one over each eye and a longer
one above the nose. The jaws terminated
in a sharp clipping beak, like that of a
turtle, and further back in the mouth
there were rows of double-rooted teeth.
The back of the skull was developed into
a broad shield. with scalloped border, ex-
tending over the neck. 1t was ancestral
to the later Triceratops.
'Strangest of all was the herbivorous
| Ankylosaurus, stocky, short-legged,
big bodied creature, completely encased
in armor. Dermal plates covered the
skull, followed by rings OF plates over
! the neck and rows of fiat plates over the
back and hips, Its tail terminated in a
huge club. and the belly was covered
by pliable mosaic of small, close-set
plates. 1t was further protected by a
movable plate that could Be dropped down
like a shutter over each eve, thus COM
pleting it's protection from insects and
formidable foes"