Ss ee 
THE ICHTHYOSAURUS. 149 
Unwieldly in appearance, disproportionate (according to our 
ideas) in its head, and altogether enormous in bulk, I yet hope 
to show you that there is nothing in the structure of this extinct 
saurian that does not harmonise with the rest of creation, but that 
it is one of the many missing links brought to light by the 
labours of the geologist which tend now year by year to make up 
the perfection of the many-stranded chain of animated existence. 
As its name implies, it partakes of the natures of animals occupy- 
ing distinct classes, it resembles both fishes and lizards—it is, in 
fact, an Ichthyosawrus, a fish lizard. Regard being had to its size, 
it occupied in the liassic seas the same position that the whale 
now fills—the hugest animal known, and one which in many 
respects it resembles, though in the all-important matter of food 
our ancient friend was predatory and carnivorous. He possessed, 
combined in himself, organs and arrangements never since found 
in any one species, but now divided, spread among three or four 
families ; and was thus enabled to act in the economy of nature the 
parts now performed by many and widely separated species. 
He had a head resembling a lizard, the fore part a porpoise, the 
jaws and teeth were those of a crocodile, the vertebra those of a 
fish, the paddles those of a whale, the body and tail those of a 
quadruped. Never since, I say, has such a combination been 
found in one animal, the nearest resemblance to such an arrange- 
ment in the present day is found in the Ornithorhynchus of 
Australia, the land of contradictions it used to be thought, where, 
as I read, at any rate, when I went to school, the nights are days 
and the days nights, the swans are black, and the dogs can’t bark, 
the leaves grow edgeways, and the cherries have the stones out- 
side. So, of course, we should expect to find an out-of-the-way 
creature there if anywhere. Possessing these varied organs you 
can imagine foryourselves theadvantages which the Ichthyosaurus, 
thirty feet long, had over its contemporaries, and what havoc it 
was capable of making in the ancient seas. The number of these 
creatures were incalculable and no less than five or six different 
kinds have been disinterred from the lias rock. It was in the 
year 1811 that a country girl, who made a precarious living by 
