The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

After some observations from Dr. M'Grig
On that fossile reliquium call'd Petrified Wig,
Or Perruquolithus—a specimen rare
Of those wigs, made for antediluvian wear,
Which, it seems, stood the Flood without turning a hair—
Mr. Tomkins rose up, and requested attention
To facts no less wondrous which he had to mention.

Some large fossil creatures had lately been found,
Of a species no longer now seen above ground,
But the same (as to Tomkins most clearly appears)
With those animals, lost now for hundreds of years,
Which our ancestors us'd to call “Bishops” and “Peers,”
But which Tomkins more erudite names has bestow'd on,
Having call'd the Peer fossil the' Aristocratodon ,

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And, finding much food under t'other one's thorax,
Has christen'd that creature the' Episcopus Vorax.

Lest the savantes and dandies should think this all fable,
Mr. Tomkins most kindly produc'd, on the table,
A sample of each of these species of creatures,
Both tol'rably human, in structure and features,
Except that the' Episcopus seems, Lord deliver us!
To've been carnivorous as well as granivorous;
And Tomkins, on searching its stomach, found there
Large lumps, such as no modern stomach could bear,
Of a substance call'd Tithe, upon which, as 'tis said,
The whole Genus Clericum formerly fed;
And which having lately himself decompounded,
Just to see what 'twas made of, he actually found it
Compos'd of all possible cookable things
That e'er tripp'd upon trotters or soar'd upon wings—
All products of earth, both gramineous, herbaceous,
Hordeaceous, fabaceous, and eke farinaceous,
All clubbing their quotas, to glut the œsophagus
Of this ever greedy and grasping Tithophagus.

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“Admire,” exclaim'd Tomkins, “the kind dispensation
“By Providence shed on this much-favour'd nation,
“In sweeping so ravenous a race from the earth,
“That might else have occasion'd a general dearth—
“And thus burying 'em, deep as ev'n Joe Hume would sink 'em,
“With the Ichthyosaurus and Palœorynchum,
“And other queer ci-devant things, under ground—
“Not forgetting that fossilised youth , so renown'd,
“Who liv'd just to witness the Deluge—was gratified
“Much by the sight, and has since been found stratified!”

This picturesque touch—quite in Tomkins's way—
Call'd forth from the savantes a general hurrah;
While inquiries among them went rapidly round,
As to where this young stratified man could be found.

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The “learn'd Theban's” discourse next as livelily flow'd on,
To sketch t'other wonder, the' Aristocratodon—
An animal, differing from most human creatures
Not so much in speech, inward structure, or features,
As in having a certain excrescence, T. said,
Which in form of a coronet grew from its head,
And devolv'd to its heirs, when the creature was dead;
Nor matter'd it, while this heir-loom was transmitted,
How unfit were the heads, so the coronet fitted.

He then mention'd a strange zoological fact,
Whose announcement appear'd much applause to attract.
In France, said the learned professor, this race
Had so noxious become, in some centuries' space,
From their numbers and strength, that the land was o'errun with 'em,
Every one's question being, “What's to be done with 'em?”

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When, lo! certain knowing ones—savans, mayhap,
Who, like Buckland's deep followers, understood trap ,
Slily hinted that nought upon earth was so good
For Aristocratodons, when rampant and rude,
As to stop, or curtail, their allowance of food.
This expedient was tried, and a proof it affords
Of the' effect that short commons will have upon lords;
For this whole race of bipeds, one fine summer's morn,
Shed their coronets, just as a deer sheds his horn,
And the moment these gewgaws fell off, they became
Quite a new sort of creature—so harmless and tame,
That zoologists might, for the first time, maintain 'em
To be near akin to the genus humanum,
And the' experiment, tried so successfully then,
Should be kept in remembrance, when wanted again. [OMITTED]

A term formed on the model of the Mastodon, &c.

The zoological term for a tithe-eater.

The man found by Scheuchzer, and supposed by him to have witnessed the Deluge (“homo diluvii testis”), but who turned out, I am sorry to say, to be merely a great lizard.

Particularly the formation called Transition Trap.