uld do it
well, I would cheerfully relinquish that end of my enterprise to him,
but in the absence of such a thing, I am, in spite of my manifest
shortcomings, compelled to do the work myself. On behalf of my story I
can say, however, that whatever I shall put down here will be the
truth, and that what I remember notwithstanding my advanced years, I
remember perfectly. I am quite aware that in some of the tales that I
shall tell, especially those having to do with Prehistoric Animals I
have met, or Antediluvians as I believe the Scientists call them, what
I may say as to their habits--I was going to say manners, but refrain
because in all my life I have never observed that they had any--and
powers may fall upon some ears as extravagant exaggerations. To these
let me say here and now that there are exceptions to all rules, and
that if for instance, I tell the story of a Pterodactyl that after
being swallowed whole by a Discosaurus, successfully gnaws his way
through the walls of the latter's stomach to freedom, I make no claim
that all Pterodactyls could do the same, but merely that in this
particular case the Pterodactyl to which I refer did it, and that I
know that he did it because the man who saw it is a cousin of my
grandfather's first wife's step-son, and is so wedded to truth that he
is even now in jail because he would not deny a charge of
sheep-stealing, which he might easily have done were he an untruthful
man. Again when I observe that I have caught with an ordinary
fish-hook, baited with a common garden, or angle worm, on the end of a
light trout-line, a Creosaurus with a neck ninety-seven feet long, and
scales so large that you could weigh a hay-wagon on the smallest of
the lot near the end of his tail, I admit at the outset that the feat
was unusual, had never occurred before, and is never likely to occur
again, but can bring affidavits to prove that it did happen that time,
signed by reputable parties who have heard me tell about it more than
once. I make these statements here not in any sense to apologize for
anything I shall say in my book, but merely to forestall the criticism
of highly cultivated and truly scientific readers who, after a
lifelong study of the habits of these creatures may feel impelled to
question the accuracy of my statements and add to my perplexities by
so advertising my book that I shall be put to the arduous necessity of
chiseling out another edition, a labor which I have no desire