So far as mere appearance goes he would compare very well, for while so much is said about the strange appearance of the Dinosaurs, it is to be borne in mind that their peculiarities are enhanced by their size, and that there are many lizards of to-day that lack only stature to be even more _bizarre_; and, for example, were the Australian Moloch but big enough, he could give even Stegosaurus "points" in more ways than one. Standing before the skull of Triceratops, looking him squarely in the face, one notices in front of each eye a thick guard of projecting bone, and while this must have interfered with vision directly ahead it must have also furnished protection for the eye. So long as Triceratops faced an adversary he must have been practically invulnerable, but as he was the largest animal of his time, upward of twenty-five feet in length, it is probable that his combats were mainly with those of his own kind and the subject of dispute some fair female upon whom two rival suitors had cast covetous eyes. What a sight it would have been to have seen two of these big brutes in mortal combat as they charged upon each other with all the impetus to be derived from ten tons of infuriate flesh! We may picture to ourselves horn clashing upon horn, or glancing from each bony shield until some skilful stroke or unlucky slip placed one combatant at the mercy of the other, and he went down before the blows of his adversary "as falls on Mount Alvernus a thunder-smitten oak." [Illustration: Fig. 21.--Moloch. A Modern Lizard that Surpasses the Stegosaurs in All but Size. _From a drawing by J. M. Gleeson._] A pair of Triceratops horns in the National Museum bears witness to such encounters, for one is broken midway between tip and base; and that it was broken during life is evident from the fact that the stump is healed and rounded over, while the size of the horns shows that their owner reached a ripe old age. For, unlike man and the higher vertebrates, reptiles and fishes do not have a maximum standard of size which is soon reached and rarely exceeded, but continue to grow throughout life, so that the size of a turtle, a crocodile, or a Dinosaur tells something of the duration of its life.