ientific men as to their origin and
connections.

The Deinosaurs (or "terrible reptiles"), the monarchs of the land and
the swamps, are the central and outstanding family of the Mesozoic
reptiles. As the name implies, this group includes most of the colossal
animals, such as the Diplodocus, which the illustrated magazine has made
familiar to most people. Fortunately the assiduous research of American
geologists and their great skill and patience in restoring the dead
forms enable us to form a very fair picture of this family of medieval
giants and its remarkable ramifications. [*]

* See, besides the usual authorities, a valuable paper by
Dr. R. S. Lull, "Dinosaurian Distribution" (1910).

The Diapsid reptiles of the Permian had evolved a group with horny,
parrot-like beaks, the Rhyncocephalia (or "beak-headed" reptiles), of
which the tuatara of New Zealand is a lingering representative. New
Zealand seems to have been cut off from the southern continent at the
close of the Permian or beginning of the Triassic, and so preserved
for us that very interesting relic of Permian life. From some primitive
level of this group, it is generally believed, the great Deinosaurs
arose. Two different orders seem to have arisen independently, or
diverged rapidly from each other, in different parts of the world. One
group seems to have evolved on the "lost Atlantis," the land between
Western Europe and America, whence they spread westward to America,
eastward over Europe, and southward to the continent which still united
Africa and Australia. We find their remains in all these regions.
Another stock is believed to have arisen in America.

Both these groups seem to have been more or less biped, rearing
themselves on large and powerful hind limbs, and (in some cases, at
least) probably using their small front limbs to hold or grasp their
food. The first group was carnivorous, the second herbivorous; and, as
the reptiles of the first group had four or five toes on each foot,
they are known as the Theropods (or "beast-footed" ), while those of
the second order, which had three toes, are called the Ornithopods (or
"bird-footed"). Each of them then gave birth to an order of quadrupeds.
In the spreading waters and rich swamps of the later Triassic some of
the Theropods were attracted to return to an amphibious life, and became
the vast, sprawling, ponderous Sauropods, the giants in a world of
giants. On the other hand, a branch