DISTRIBUTIO!<r OF OPHIDIANS. 243 



tleed, to favour the opinion that those animals were not 

 numerous in antediluvian epochs, and that they did not 

 exist at that remote period when the earth was inhabited 

 by those Saurians of enormous magnitude, those singular 

 animals known by the names of Plesiosaurus and Ichthy- 

 osaurus, reptiles of which such fine remains are discovered 

 in the Juracic and clialk formations. 



