172 TIE INHABITANTS OF Tilk SEA 
CHAPS OX, 
THE REPTILES OF THE OCEAN. 
The Saurians of the Past Seas.—The Anatomical Structure of the Turtles— ~ 
Their Size—Their Visits to the Shores—The Dangers that await their Young 
—Turtles on the Brazilian Coast—Prince Maximilian of Neuwied and the 
Turtle—Conflicts of the Turtles with Wild Dogs and Tigers on the Coast of 
Java—Turtle-catching on Ascension Island—Tortoise-shell—The Ambly- 
rhynchus cristatus—Marine Snakes —The Great Sea-Snake. 
THERE was a time when the reptiles were the monarchs 
of the sea, when the ocean swarmed with gigantic saurians, 
Ichthyosaurus. 
The most powerful saurians of the present day 
tyrants of the fishes, combining the swift- 
ness of the dolphin with the rapacity of the 
crocodile. Had those monsters of the deep 
been endowed with human intelligence, 
they would most likely also, with human 
arrogance, have boasted of an eternal sway. 
‘For where in the whole ocean was the 
enemy that could cope with them? Did 
not all beings flee wherever they appeared ? 
and did not the inexhaustible sea promise 
them an everlasting supply of food ? 
But in spite of their colossal power, the 
saurians, like all created beings, have been 
forced to succumb to time. 
Centuries and centuries passed on, the 
sea and air gradually changed, the tempe- 
rature of the elements no longer remained 
the same, and thus by degrees a new ocean 
and anew atmosphere were formed, uncon- 
genial to the nature of those huge reptiles. 
Thus they have been effaced from the roll 
of living things, and some petrified re- 
mains alone bear testimony to their former 
existence. 
the crocodile 
