He smoothed his roll of manuscript, adjusted his glasses, and showed an inclination to begin. So I settled down and listened to his singular story:-- “Of course, in a dream, as at a modern comic play, one must not stop to weigh probabilities and be logical, else the structure in either case tumbles about one’s ears and the pleasure of the concern is spoiled. Thus, when I found myself on a fine morning starting for a day’s sport and science in the Mesozoic Period, the circumstance caused me little surprise. My black gaiters, I may tell you, were changed into brown ones, on my shoulder rested a Remington rifle, and by my side walked my wife’s black tom-cat, Peter. Of course my knowledge of the period led me to note the extremely Mesozoic nature of my surroundings, and I was gratified beyond measure to find myself alive and hearty so far back in the history of this planet. I did not stop to remember that Peter, my Remington rifle, and I myself were all alike unevolved; that even palæolithic man could not appear for unnumbered centuries; that his very flint stones were still sponges at the bottom of mighty oceans. Nor did it strike me at first that I was lonely, thus separated from my kind by gulfs of time so awful. On the contrary, I revelled in my environment; I proved that it was distinctly Jurassic, and I laughed with satisfaction to reflect that I was ahead, by about twelve million years, of every sportsman who had shot big game with a rifle. I was generous, too. It struck me how Cuvier, or Huxley, or Owen, or Tyndall, or Darwin, or Geikie, or Marsh, or Zittel, or Hutchinson, or a thousand other eminent naturalists and palæontologists, would have enjoyed a morning amid the wonders of that period; and I wished they were all there under the protection of me and my Remington, and Peter. “I stood upon the borders of a lake in a marshy district. The scenery was chiefly composed of volcanoes, for I could note a dozen of them upon the horizon, casting columns of smoke upwards into a cloudy sky. It was a close, thundery day, and occasionally heavy drops of rain fell, though the weather kept fine between the showers. Gigantic tree-ferns grew around me, and in the expanse of bogland along the fringe of the water rose jungles of huge club mosses and clumsy lycopodiaceæ and some coniferæ. “About the borders of this inland sea insect life swarmed freely. Myriads of gnats, of enormous size and quite seven inches across the wings, danced with giant dragon-flies over the water. Occasionally a ganoid fish rose like a trout and consumed one; which may have been a curious thing for a ganoid fish to do, but I was not critical. These ganoids, by the way, had but a paltry time of it. Fish-lizards, or Ichthyosaurs, chased them hither and thither, devouring thousands on the surface; Plesiosaurs, with necks like swans and lizard heads, grabbed the ganoids too, and Heaven only knows what monsters lay in wait for them in the deep waters when they dived.