68 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



relatively larger, and we should imagine that they were very 

 quick in detecting and catching their prey ; their paddles also 

 have larger bones. 



There is a remarkably fine specimen at Burlington House, in 

 the rooms of the G-eological Society, of an Ichthyosaurus' head, 

 which the writer found, on measuring, to be about five feet six 

 inches long. A cast of this head is exhibited at the Natural 

 History Museum. The largest of the specimens in the National 

 Collection is twenty-two feet long and eight feet across the 

 expanded paddles; but it is known that many attained much 

 greater dimensions. Judging from detached heads and parts 

 of skeletons, it is probable that some of them were between 

 thirty and forty feet long. A specimen of Ichthyosaurus 

 platyodon in the collection of the late Mr. Johnson, of 

 Bristol, has an eye-cavity with a diameter of fourteen inches. 

 This collection is now dispersed. 



With regard to their habits, Sir Kichard Owen concludes that 

 they occasionally sought the shores, crawled on the strand, and 

 basked in the sunshine. His reason for this conjecture (which, 

 however, is not confirmed by Dr. Fraas's recent discoveries) is to 

 be found in the bony structure connected with the fore paddles, 

 which is not to be found in any porpoise, dolphin, grampus, or 

 whale, and for want of which these creatures are so helpless when 

 left high and dry on the shore. 1 The structure in question is a 

 strong bony arch, inverted and spanning across beneath the chest 

 from one shoulder to the other. A fish-lizard, when so visiting 

 the shore for sleep, or in the breeding season, would lie or crawl, 



1 It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remark that whales are not fishes but 

 mammals which have undergone great change in order to adapt themselves 

 to a marine life. Then- hind limbs have practically vanished, only a rudiment 

 of them being left. But their external resemblance to the Ichthyosaur type is 

 remarkable dolphins especially so (see p. 73). 



