15. Big Animals

'The Atlantosaurus,' said I, pointing affectionately with a wave of my
left hand to all that was immortal of that extinct reptile, 'is
estimated to have had a total length of one hundred feet, and was
probably the very biggest lizard that ever lived, even in Western
America, where his earthly remains were first disinhumed by an
enthusiastic explorer.'

'Yes, yes,' my friend answered abstractedly. 'Of course, of course;
things were all so very big in those days, you know, my dear fellow.'

'Excuse me,' I replied with polite incredulity; 'I really don't know to
what particular period of time the phrase "in those days" may be
supposed precisely to refer.'

My friend shuffled inside his coat a little uneasily. (I will admit that
I was taking a mean advantage of him. The professorial lecture in
private life, especially when followed by a strict examination, is quite
undeniably a most intolerable nuisance.) 'Well,' he said, in a crusty
voice, after a moment's hesitation, 'I mean, you know, in geological
times ... well, there, my dear fellow, things used all to be so _very_
big in those days, usedn't they?'

I took compassion upon him and let him off easily. 'You've had enough of
the museum,' I said with magnanimous self-denial. 'The Atlantosaurus has
broken the camel's back. Let's go and have a quiet cigarette in the park
outside.'

But if you suppose, reader, that I am going to carry my forbearance so
far as to let you, too, off the remainder of that geological
disquisition, you are certainly very much mistaken. A discourse which
would be quite unpardonable in social intercourse may be freely admitted
in the privacy of print; because, you see, while you can't easily tell a
man that his conversation bores you (though some people just avoid doing
so by an infinitesimal fraction), you can shut up a book whenever you
like, without the very faintest or remotest risk of hurting the author's
delicate susceptibilities.

The subject of my discourse naturally divides itself, like the
conventional sermon, into two heads--the precise date of 'geological
times,' and the exact bigness of the animals that lived in them. And I
may as well begin by announcing my general conclusion at the very
outset; first, that 'those days' never existed at all; and, secondly,
that the animals which now inhabit this particular planet are, on the
whole, about as big, taken in the lump, as any previous contemporary
fauna that ever lived at any one time together upon its changeful
surface. I know that to announce this sad conclusion is to break down
one more universal and cherished belief; everybody considers that
'geological animals' were ever so much bigger than their modern
representatives; but the