Dead Dragons

The fairy story of Explorer and Mrs. Douglas Burden's dragon hunt in the Dutch East Indies ended, like any good fairy story, with the death of the dragons. The Burdens took their monsters home to Manhattan safely (TIME, Sept. 20), but there they died, after several months' captivity in Bronx Zoo, unable to survive in the chill climate and on a cage diet. Last week curators of the American Museum of Natural History announced that the dead dragons were nearly ready for exhibition in the new Hall of Dinosaurs. Their eight-foot corpses were mounted, one in the act of strangling a wild boar, the other "snarling defiance at civilization." Beneath their showcase will be a placard explaining again that they were varanus komodensis, giant monitor lizards, descendants of Mesozoic dinosaurs, nocturnal, rapaciously carnivorous, fleet of foot, deaf, strong enough to slay a horse.