Abstract
“CREATURES of Other Days” is a work of literature rather than science, and is yet so full of reference to scientific facts and discoveries that it appears like a work of learning. It narrates the history of extinct animals laboriously discovered, and in many cases still undergoing laborious interpretation by palæontologists, in language which is free from technicality. There is no reference to the anatomical structure of the skeleton which necessitates technical language. There is no critical digest of the facts enumerated, or of the nomenclature under which the fossils are described. No attempt is made to state the osteological characters which distinguish these fossils from each other. Materials which any author has supplied are accepted impartially, and the same animal type is illustrated by dissimilar restorations. Thus Mr. Hulke made a quadrupedal restoration of Hypsilaphodpn Foxi, an animal which once was termed a young Iguanodan, out of which Mr. Smit has restored a vigorous-looking lizard. If these interpretations are correct, it is improbable that the vertical bipedal restoration of Anchisaurus, given by Prof. Marsh, and restored by Mr. Smit, can also Jbe satisfactory. Many of the original restorations endeavour to convey an idea to the unlearned of the skin and aspect of the living animals. And as these are based upon published figures, or restorations, the author has no doubt gone to the best material which was available, even when the result is unsatisfactory. Sir William Flower, in his preface, fairly states the claim of the restorations to consideration. He says: “In the restoration of the external appearance of extinct animals, known only by bones and teeth, there is much of imagination, much indeed of mere guess-work, and I should therefore be sorry to guarantee the accuracy of any of the representations of animals in this book, the majority of which were never seen in the flesh by the eyes of mortal man. I think, however, I may safely say that Mr. Hutchinson and his accomplished artist, Mr. Smit, have done their work carefully and conscientiously, and given us, in most cases, a fair idea of the appearance of the creatures they have endeavoured to depict according to the best evidence at present available.” Sir William commends the figures because they give a better idea of the animals than most persons who only saw their fossil remains would be able to carry away. This unscientific attitude of the book is its chief merit. It is only when the author becomes an expositor of science that scientific men are likely to disagree with him. More care was needed in some of the restorations. The old red sandstone fishes, for example, are drawn without any regard to their relative sizes, those of the upper and lower beds swimming together as though they were of the same geological age, while at the bottom of the water are Trilobites, Brachiopods, and Cephalopods, which no one ever saw in the old red sandstone.
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S., H. Creatures of other Days1. Nature 50, 426–428 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/050426c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/050426c0