Front:
One in his head (the usual place),
If one brain found the pressure
strong,
It passed a few ideas along.
The Dinosaur
by Bert Leston Taylor
Behold the mighty dinosaur,
Famous in prehistoric lore,
Not only for his power and
strength
But for his intellectual length.
You will observe by these remains
The creature had two sets of
brains –
If something slipped his forward
mind,
'Twas rescued by the one behind,
And if in error he was caught,
He had a saving afterthought.
As he thought twice before he
spoke,
He had no judgement to revoke.
Thus he could think without con-
gestion
Upon both sides of every ques-
tion.
One in his head (the usual place),
The other at his spinal base.
Thus he could reason “A priori"
As well as “A posteriori."
No problem bothered him a bit;
He made both head and tail of it.
So wise was he, so wise and solemn,
Each thought filled just a spinal
column.
Oh, gaze upon this model beast,
Defunct ten million years at
least.
First published in the Chicago Tribune, I895.
Back:
360
52
Stegosaurus was one of the most bizarre dinosaurs.
He was 20 feet long, 8 feet high, and had a
double row of plates down his back. The poem,
"The Dinosaur", has furthered a popular miscon- 5
ception that he had 2 brains. Many dinosaurs had
a pelvic enlargement of the spinal cord that un-
doubtedly served only as a motor control for the
hind legs and tail. Stegosaurus – the subject of
the poem — had a pelvic enlargement 20 times
the size of his walnut sized brain!
Albert J. Copley, Cameron State College, Lawton, Okla.
