Dinosaurs – a letter to the editor

[oxiana]

Sir,

I note with some amusement the recent popularity of so-called 'dinosaur hunting' games among adherents of Mr HG Wells's 'Little Wars' and similar pastimes. I should like to correct the perception that hunting was the major drive behind the saurian safaris that we all found so popular in the early part of the Twentieth Century.

Trophy collecting was certainly popular, and the first President Roosevelt wrote thrillingly over his 1909 expedition to bag his 18-point Styracosaur buck in Upper Tanganyka. But the vogue for dinosaurs certainly pre-dates this, and some of the most celebrated expeditions were for the purposes of collecting live specimens.

The accounts of Professor Challenger's expeditions to South America and subsequent donation of specimens to the Zoological Society of London are rightly famed. But who can forget the precedents of his Victorian forebears, satirised so splendidly by Mr Henry James in his novel 'Portrait of a Lady and Her Lizard'?

In the present day, when dinosaurs are a dime a dozen, and a gentleman can fortify himself on Protoceratops eggs for breakfast and in the evening dine on the finest Plateosaur steak in his club, younger readers may do well to remember the days when dinosaurs were a novelty.

Following the roaring success of the 'Skull Island' movie series, Hollywood was ablaze with all things dinosaur. No Errol Flynn swashbuckler was considered complete without a Deinonychus duel, and no musical complete without a pirouetting Fred Astaire and Gallimimus Rogers.

No trend lasts forever of course, and most people today see mark the 1960s Las Vegas wrestling bouts between washed up heavyweight champion Joe Louis and an Iguanadon to be a low point from which dinosaur popularity has never recovered.

Nevertheless, those of us of a certain generation look back on our youth as a golden time when dinosaurs were the height of fashion. No girl would appear at a party without a Hypsoliphodon in her purse, or Archaeopteryx feathers decorating her hat. For my part, I append a photograph of Groucho, Harpo and Chico, the three Velociraptors we kept at the Skull and Bones fraternity house in Yale in the mid-1930s. They were splendid, intelligent and loyal creatures, and it saddens me in my old age that they have subsequently been so slandered by Mr Spielberg's movie entertainments.

I remain, your humble servant,

Arthur 'Bunny' McQuarson III (Maj. retired)

[marianas_gamer]

 

[OSHIROmodels]

 

Very nicely put that man 

cheers

James

[Bako]

A swell thing, that.

[mikedemana]

I feel no movie suffers from having a good "dinosaur chasing a human" scene...!

[HPFlashman]

Splendid write-up, old chap.

Chin chin and all that...

[Wirelizard]

But will they fetch your slippers when you get home of an evening?

(mind you, most dogs are more likely to chew your slippers than fetch them, so no points either way there, perhaps...)

Excellent writeup, where are the 'raptors from, and did they come with collars or were those conversions?

[Malamute]

Delightful

[Captain Blood]

Excellent writing. Lovely undergrowth. 

[oxiana]

Excellent writing. Lovely undergrowth. 

By happy coincidence, the 'undergrowth' also goes well with lamb chops, as a garnish on roast potatoes or in a nice salad dressing... 

Excellent writeup, where are the 'raptors from, and did they come with collars or were those conversions?

They're from the Foundry fantasy range – the Ogre Queens I think. They came tucked in a big bundle of stuff I got from eBay last year. And yes, they do fetch your slippers.