THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 59 
bottom of the sea, was preyed upon by some carnivorous animal 
(perhaps sharks). It seems, he says, as if a bite of the neck had 
pulled out of place the eighth to the twelfth vertebrae. Those at 
the base of the neck are scattered and dispersed as if through 
more “tugging and riving.” So with regard to its body, pro- 
bably some hungry creature had a grip of the spine near the 
middle of the back, and pulled all the succeeding vertebre in the 
region of the hind limbs. ‘Thus we get a little glimpse of scenes 
of violence that took place at the bottom of the bright sunny 
seas of the period when the clays and limestones of the Lias 
rocks were being deposited in the region of Lyme-Regis. 
As time went on, these curious reptiles increased in size, until, 
in the period when our English chalk was being formed (Creta- 
ceous period), they reached their highest point (see p. 147). After 
that they became extinct—whether slowly or somewhat suddenly 
we cannot tell. 
Until more is known of the ancient life of the earth, it will not 
be possible to say with certainty what were the nearest relations 
_ Of the long-necked sea-lizards. They first appear in the strata 
of the New Red Sandstone, which is below the Lias. Certain 
little reptiles, about three feet long, from the former rocks, known 
as Neusticosaurus and Larlosaurus, seem to be rather closely 
related to the creatures we are now considering, and to connect 
them with another group, namely, the Pliosaurs. They were 
partly terrestrial and partly aquatic; but it is not easy to say 
whether their limbs had been converted into true paddles or not. 
At any rate, there is every reason to believe that the long-necked 
sea-lizards were descended from an earlier form of land reptile. 
They gradually underwent considerable modifications, in order to 
adapt themselves to an aquatic life. We noticed that the same 
conclusion has been arrived at with regard to the fish-lizards. 
Both these extinct groups, therefore, present an interesting analogy 
to whales, which are now considered to have been derived, by a 
like series of changes, from mammals that once walked the earth. 
