THE DECAY OF THE GIANT BEASTS.
(To TRH EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sra,—I have read with much interest your article in the Spectator of June 22nd on "The Decay of the Giant Beasts." First I wish to thank the writer of the article for his allusion to my suggestion of a " Law of Anticipation " in my two works on Paleontology, a point which every one of my numerous reviewers has failed to notice ; secondly, whether this is what the Duke of Argyll referred to as " prophetic types" in the correspondence in "Nature" a few years ago, I cannot say now, not having means of access to it. I wish to say that—while I quite agree with what the writer says of the former much greater size of reptiles at least—yet we are apt to forget that we still have some decidedly large mammals about us even in this impoverished world of the present day. Some of the modern whales attain a length of 80 ft., which is even greater than that of the Mosasauroids of the Cretaceous era, which seem to have played the part of whales in those days. The elephants of to-day are much larger than the generalised mammals of North America, whose skeletons Professor Marsh has unearthed. Certainly, the Elephas ganesa of the Sewalic Hills had enormously long tusks (about 10 ft. 6 in ); but we do not know what was the size of its body. India has a large one-horned rhinoceros. Reptiles were big in the Secondary era because they were the ruling type, and had the rich plains to themselves; mammals took their place in Tertiary times, and a good many of them have certainly been exterminated by human agency. Bat we still have some very large sharks, as any one may see by paying a visit to the Natural History Musuem.—I am, Author of "Extinct Monsters."
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