SOME PREHISTORIC ANIMALS

Field, Forest and Farm by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. SOME PREHISTORIC ANIMALS

CHAPTER LIX. SOME PREHISTORIC ANIMALS

“Fossil remains of all sorts of animals, from the largest to the smallest, are found embedded in stone. There are lizards which, if alive, would hardly find room enough to turn around in many of our public squares, so monstrous is their size; tortoises with shell as large as a small boat; fishes of strange formation; birds of a singular character such as we no longer behold; and enormous quadrupeds that would dwarf to insignificance our sturdy ox. All flying creatures of the air, all walking and creeping animals of the earth, every form of life swimming in the water, are represented in these fossil remains found in the heart of our rocks, but of a shape and often of a size very different from those of our living animals.

“These ancient creatures have never been seen alive by man, so far back in the past is their period. After inhabiting the earth for a very long time, they disappeared forever, to give place to other species. What remains of them consists chiefly of bones, which from their hardness and their mineral character offer the most resistance to the various destructive agencies. With the sole aid of these bones science succeeds in reconstructing the exact form of [329]the animal. It also tells us what the animal fed on and what were its habits. By a miracle of sagacity it resuscitates, so to speak, the ancient, dislocated carcass, and makes it live again to the mind’s eye.

“Fossil bones are commonly found embedded in stone quarried at considerable depths; it needs the work of pick and chisel and hammer to free them from the rock. How did they come to be there? In the same way as shells. If the creature lived in the waters of a lake or of the sea, the mud at the bottom covered the body after death. If it lived on land, the floods swept away its carcass and bore it to the river, which in turn carried it to lake or ocean. Later the lake dried up or the ocean receded, and the hardened clay left behind became the stone whence to-day are obtained the relics of prehistoric forms of animal life.

Skeleton of Pterichthys

“What, then, were these prehistoric forms of animal life that preceded man? Regarding ourselves as related to the animals provided with bones, a sort of inner framework sustaining the corporeal edifice, we may say in a general way that there has been a gradual succession from lower to higher in structure. First appeared the fishes, then came the reptiles, next the birds, after them the [330]quadrupeds, suckling their young, and last of all man, placed above all the rest by his incomparable endowments.

“Let us glance rapidly at some examples of the ancient denizens of land and sea. Look at this picture. The back of the creature here represented resembles a little, in its form and in its regular rows of scales, the tail of a fish; but the front—to what can that be likened? What is the meaning of those large bony plaques arranged side by side like the squares in a tessellated pavement? The animal is armed with coat of mail, perhaps to protect itself from the bite of an enemy.

“What is the purpose of those wing-like appendages that strike the flanks? Of what use are those two short horns at the base of the forehead? What sort of a creature can it be that thus singularly combines in its structure the tail of a fish, the shell of a tortoise, the featherless wings of a bird, and the nascent horns of a ram? You will never guess the answer, so different is the creature from any that are known to you. It is a fish, but such a fish as no frying-pan of ours has ever had acquaintance with, nor does the ocean now hold any more like it.

“It goes back to the earliest ages of the world, and is called the pterichthys. Do not exclaim at this name, as strange to our ears as the creature itself to our eyes. Translated into our tongue, it means a winged fish. But did this fish of former ages really fly? Assuredly not. It was too heavy, too massive, [331]to admit of that. Its wings were simply admirable fins for swimming.

Flying Fish

“In the seas of our day there live certain fishes fitted for flying. Their lateral fins, which are very long, open like large fans and enable them to sustain themselves for some time in the air. Pressed too hard by a pursuing foe, they escape by leaping out of the water and flying over the waves, clearing a certain distance before plunging again into the water, as they must when their fins begin to get dry and to lose their suppleness. They are called flying fishes. Compare these two pictures and you will see how greatly the present flying fish differs from the ancient winged fish.

Pterodactyl

“And this other creature—what wild dream could have conceived such a monstrosity? It has the head [332]and neck of a plucked bird; and it also has a bird’s beak, but an enormous one armed with pointed teeth in each mandible. Its wings are those of a bat, one talon of each claw being disproportionately elongated and serving as support to a wide membrane, much as an umbrella-rib holds the stretched fabric of the cover. Its other talons are free and are furnished with hooked nails.

“The hind legs and feet are those of the lizard. The body is covered with fine scales, is marbled with touches of a darker color, and ends in an abbreviated tail. Take away from this strange animal its bat’s wings, its long neck and its bird’s head, and you will have something closely resembling the lizard, the creature that basks in the sun on old walls, or that other one, larger and all green, which gives us a start when it scuttles away among the dead leaves or in the dense growth of the hedge.”

“And was it a lizard, then, or a bird?” asked Emile.

“It was a reptile, certainly,” was the reply, “and it might be called a sort of lizard. There were several species, varying from the size of a lark to that of a crow. Like the bat, the animal left its retreat in the hollow of rocks and came out at night to flutter awkwardly about in the air by the aid of its wings of stretched skin. With its toothed beak it snapped up in their flight immense dragon-flies, the chief insects of that time. Its hunger appeased, it took its repose on the ground, wings folded against its sides, body supported by the hind legs; or else [333]it hung down from the rocks, suspended by its claws. Its name is pterodactyl, which means wing-fingered.

“Let us consider another of these prehistoric creatures. This time it is a bird, and what a marvelous bird, too, my friends! Its beak, no less monstrous than that of the pterodactyl, had likewise the two mandibles armed with a ferocious-looking set of teeth. Pointed teeth in the jaws of a reptile, such as a lizard, crocodile, or serpent, are nothing extraordinary; but in a bird’s mouth, that is unheard-of. To-day one would search in vain all over the earth for anything like it. There are beaks of all shapes and sizes, there are short ones and long ones, straight ones and crooked ones, strong ones and weak ones; but all are toothless, as are the hen’s and the sparrow’s. What a singular custom in the primitive bird, to adopt for beak the toothed jaws of the reptile!

“And that is not all. This bird adopted also the reptile’s tail, but covered it with feathers. Birds of the present day have a short, wide rump, from [334]which grow a dozen coarse feathers. The first bird in the order of time had its tail composed of a long succession of little bones, each supporting two feathers. Here is a picture of that tail just as it was found in the rock where the strange creature left its remains. The bird to which the tail belonged is called by the learned an archæopteryx, or ancient winged animal.

Fossil Remains of Archæopteryx

Mammoth

“One more of these monsters, and that will suffice. The animal that you see here is the mammoth, a sort of enormous shaggy elephant, so tall that its back would have touched the ceiling in most of our great halls. Its height was as much as six meters. By its side the ordinary elephant, the largest of extant terrestrial animals, would look no larger than a sheep beside an ox.

“Its tusks, which had a pronounced backward curve, measured four meters in length and weighed as much as four hundred and eighty pounds each. [335]What must have been the strength of a colossus carrying between its lips a weight of nine hundred pounds as easily as a cat carries the hairs of its mustaches!

“Man was already in existence at the time of the mammoth. Armed with sharp flint-stones and bone-pointed arrows, he made bold to attack the enormous animal whose weight made the earth tremble. He hunted it in the chase and feasted on its flesh. What a piece of game when the giant fell into the deep ditch masked by a light covering of boughs and foliage! The victim was then overwhelmed with masses of rock, after which there was an interminable banquet for the whole tribe.

“Let us go no further, but merely say in conclusion that the animals of to-day are not the same as those of former ages. Long before the present species on land and in the sea, there gradually made their appearance other very different forms of animal life, which have now become extinct. Nowhere on the earth are there now living any creatures like those that have left their fossil remains for our inspection.”

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books.

This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Field, Forest and Farm. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67813/pg67813-images.html

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.