The Wondrous Journals of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins
Page 17
Twelve decades later, the mystery has finally been solved—and, extraordinarily, it appears that Dr. Wiggins is still managing to discover ancient creatures, even after his death.
Last year, a construction company in Shropshire began to dig out a foundation for a parking garage, and made an astonishing discovery: a bone-filled cavern some thirty feet belowground. In the center of that cavern: a carriage and skeletons of a horse and a man. And a curious chest bearing the following address:
PRESIDENT
ROYAL PALEOZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
REGENT’S PARK, LONDON
From what we can piece together, it seems that the messenger had decided to take a shortcut through some local woods instead of staying on the roads. At some point, the land below his carriage caved in, plunging the messenger and the horse to their deaths. An examination of the human skeleton shows a broken neck. The horse broke two legs but survived the fall; tragically, it either starved or froze to death. The hole in the ground—located in a particularly remote and dense part of the woods—went undiscovered. Tree roots eventually webbed into the cavern; dirt and forest debris filled it up.
What caused the land to collapse in such a way? Well, the messenger apparently had been trotting over the ceiling of an underground animal warren carved out by an ancient passel of groundhog-like creatures, whose petrified bones were found alongside the carriage. Inhabitants of the Shropshire area hundreds of thousands of years ago, this odd species had bodies that resembled contemporary groundhogs and faces like today’s gruff English bulldogs. The remains of these English “grounddogs” were carefully exhumed and are on display here tonight.
We can safely consider them the final discovery of Dr. Wendell Wellington Wiggins, the greatest paleozoologist of all time.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank her editor, Erin Clarke; her agent, Kate Lee; her collaborator, David Foote; her husband, Gregory Macek; photographer Katie Fischer; Becka Citron of Modern Anthology; the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; the Natural History Museum in London; and the Evolution Store. She would also like to acknowledge her adoration of the following figures, who helped inspire this book: naturalist Theodore Roosevelt; adventurers Amelia Earhart, Beryl Markham, and Isak Dinesen; anthropologists Margaret Mead and Jane Goodall; and Tintin, the boy reporter—even if he is only a cartoon.
The illustrator wishes to thank his editor, Erin Clarke; his agent, Kari Stuart; his collaborator, Lesley M. M. Blume; Rachel Sheedy, Becka Citron, and John Marsala of Modern Anthology; and his family, his friends, and all the strange creatures that make the world the fascinating and endlessly inspiring place that it is.