Professor Marsh re-named his supposed bison "_Ceratops_" (_i.e._
"horned face") and gave to the closely related skulls discovered by
Mr. Hatcher the name of _Triceratops_ (_i.e._ "three horned face"),
while to the whole group he gave the name of Ceratopsia.
[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Skulls of Horned Dinosaurs. The lower
row, _Ceratops_, _Styracosaurus_, _Monoclonius_, are from the
Middle Cretacic (Belly River formation) of Alberta;
_Anchiceratops_ is from the Upper Cretacic (Edmonton formation) of
Alberta; _Triceratops_ and _Torosaurus_ from the uppermost
Cretacic (Lance formation) of Wyoming.]
These were the first of a long series of discoveries which through
scientific and popular descriptions have made the Horned Dinosaurs
familiar to the world. Most of them are still very imperfectly known,
and of their evolution and earlier history we know very little as yet.
But we can form a fairly correct idea of their general appearance and
habits and of the part they played in the world of the late Cretacic.
So far as known they were limited to North America. The most striking
feature of the Horned Dinosaurs is the gigantic skull, armed with a
pair of horns over the orbits and a median horn on the nasal bones in
front, and with a great bony crest projecting at the back and sides.
In some species the skull with its bony frill attains a length of
seven or even eight feet and about three feet width; the usual length
is five or six feet and the width about three.
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