Oh how unlike Iguanodon next me
In dignity, yet moving at my nod.
The Mega-Plesi-Hylae-Saurian tribes-
Ranked next along the grand descending scale:
Testudo next below the Nautilus
The curious Ammonite and kindred forms,
All giants to the puny races here,
Scarce seen except by Ichthyosaurian eye,
Gone too the noble palms, the lofty ferns,
The Calamite, Stigmaria, Voltzia all:
And Oh! what dwarfs, unworthy of a name,
Iguanodon could scarce find here a meal!
Grow on their graves! Here, too, where ocean rolled,
Where coral groves the bright green waters graced,
Which glorious monsters made their frolic haunts,
Where strange Fucoides, strewed its very bed,
And fish of splendid forms and hues, ranged free,
A shallow brook troop, where only creatures live
Which in my day were Sauroscopic called,
Scarce visible, now creeps along the waste.
—EDWARD HITCHCOCK, “THE SANDSTONE BIRD,” 1836