34 RELICS FROM THE WRECK 



folded, it might walk or hop like a bird. Dr. Buckland is 

 of opinion that it had the power of swimming. Fig. 5 ex- 

 hibits the chief reptiles of the Liassic age, the Ichthyosau- 

 rus and Plesiosaurus ; the latter in the act of catching a 

 pterodactyle. 



" With head uplift above the waves, and eyes 

 That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides, 

 Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 

 Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 

 As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 

 Titanian, or earth-born, that warred on Jove. 

 Briarchus, or Typhon, whom the den 

 By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea beast 

 Leviathan, which God of all his works 

 Created hugest that swam the ocean stream." 



Cuvier in his great work, pronounces these flying reptiles 

 the most extraordinary of all the beings whose ancient ex- 

 istence is revealed to us ; and those which, if alive, would 

 seem most at variance with living forms. Eight species 

 have been determined, from the size of a snipe to that of a 

 cormorant, occurring in the lias of Lyme Regis, the oolite 

 of Stonesfield, the grit of the Wealden, and on the continent 

 at Pappenheim and Solenhofen. 



With flocks of such like creatures flying in the air, and 

 shoals of no less monstrous Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri 

 swarming in the ocean, and gigantic crocodiles and tortoises 

 crawling on the shores 



" Till all the plume-dark air 

 And rude resounding shore are one wild cry" 



of the primeval lakes and rivers ; air, sea, and land, must 

 have been strangely peopled in those early periods of our 

 infant world. 



