THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 53 



of the entire skeleton of Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus ; and the 

 accuracy of that restoration is still universally acknowledged. 

 This fine specimen was in the possession of the Duke of 

 Buckingham, who kindly placed it at the disposal of Dr. 

 Buckland, for a time, that it might be properly described and 

 investigated. 



A glance at our illustration, Plate III., will show that this strange 

 creature was not inaptly compared at the time to a snake 

 threaded through the body of a turtle. 



Dr. Buckland truly observes that the discovery of this genus 

 forms one of the most important additions that geology has made 

 to comparative anatomy. " It is of the Plesiosaurus," says that 

 graphic author, in his Bridgctvatcr Treatise, " that Cuvier asserts 

 the structure to have been the most heteroclite, and its characters 

 altogether the most monstrous that have been yet found amid the 

 ruins of a former world. To the head of a lizard it united the 

 teeth of a crocodile ; a neck of enormous length, resembling 

 the body of a serpent ; a trunk and tail having the proportions of 

 an ordinary quadruped ; the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles 

 of a whale ! Such are the strange combinations of form and 

 structure in the Plesiosaurus — a genus, the remains of which, after 

 interment for thousands of years amidst the wreck of millions of 

 extinct inhabitants of the ancient earth, are at length recalled to 

 light by the researches of the geologist, and submitted to our 

 examination in nearly as perfect a state as the bones of species 

 that are now existing upon the earth." 



Perhaps the best way in which we can gain a clear idea of the 

 general characters of a long-necked sea-lizard, as we may call our 

 Plesiosaurus, is by comparing it with the fish-lizard, described in 

 the last chapter. Its long neck and small head are the most 

 conspicuous features. Then we notice the short tail. But if we 

 compare the paddles of these two extinct forms of life, we notice 

 at once certain important differences. In the fish-lizard the bone 

 of the arm was very short, while all the bones of the fore-arm 



