Diced Brontosaurus bones are now available at the Peabody Museum trinket store. Although to the uninitiated or the unromantic these items look like ordinary chicken bones, the museum is also offering fossil crocodile scute, horse bones, and sharks' teeth.

According to Raymond A. Paynter, Jr., associate curator of Birds, some of the bone chunks range up to 125 million years old, and have been collected from various sources. The purpose of the store is to give the hoards of children who daily pass through the museum an interest in paleontology through personal possession.

"Proceeds from the sales will be used to refurbish our exhibits," said Paynter, as wily mothers skillfully steered their acquisitive children away from the stand. The sale of the dinosaur bones has been slow at first, but Paynter expressed the hope that they would increase as word of the store spread among the local schools.

While the diced Brontosaurus bones would be too small to make impressive room decorations, the fossil crocodile scutes have definite possibilities for those seeking unusual paper weights or door stops.

And, for the more mechanically minded, do-it-yourself dinosaur construction kits are on sale. These kits provide a mass of miniature plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex bones from which the prospective paleontologist can construct his own small scale dinosaur skeleton.

Although of definitely secondary interest to the dinosaur hones, the museum is also selling such items as blow-fish and cowfish skins, which look, to the uninformed, like dish rags.