6o EXTINCT MONSTERS 



of Dr. Fraas lead us to conclude that the Ichthyosaur never 

 ventured to leave the " briny ocean " to bask upon the land. 



This great uncouth beast presents some curious anomalies in 

 his constitution, being planned on different lines to anything 

 now living, and presenting, as so many other extinct animals 

 do, a mixture, or fusion, .of types that greatly puzzled the 

 learned men of the time when his remains were first brought to 

 light, after their long entombment in the Lias rocks forming the 

 cliffs on the coast of Dorset. Some have christened him a " sea- 

 dragon," and such indeed he may be considered. But the name 

 Ichthyosaurus, given above, has received the sanction of high 

 authority, and, moreover, serves to remind us of the fact that, 

 although in many respects a lizard, he yet retains in his bony 

 framework the traces of a remote fishy ancestry. So we will call 

 him a fish-lizard. 



The curious quotation given at the head of the present chapter 

 refers to a widespread belief, prevalent among the highly civilised 

 nations of antiquity, that the world was once inhabited by- 

 dragons, or other monsters " of mixed shape " and characters. 

 To the student of ancient history traces of this curious belief 

 will be familiar. Sir Charles Lyell refers to such a belief when 

 he says, in his Principles of Geology, " The Egyptians, it is true, 

 had taught, and the Stoics had repeated, that the earth had once 

 given birth to some monstrous animals that existed no longer." 

 It may be surprising to some, but it is undoubtedly the fact, 

 that modern scientific truths were partly anticipated by the 

 civilised nations of long ago. 



The illustrious Cuvier, in his day, considered the fish-lizard 

 to be one of the most heteroclite and monstrous animals ever 

 discovered (see p. 74). He said of this creature that it possessed 

 the snout of a dolphin, the teeth of a crocodile, the head and 



