CHAPTER V 



THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES 



" The wonders of geology exercise every faculty of the mind reason, 

 memory, imagination ; and though we cannot put our fossils to the question, 

 it is something to be so aroused as to be made to put the question to one's 

 self." HUGH MILLEK. 



THE fish-lizards, described in our last chapter, were not the 

 only predaceous monsters that haunted the seas of the great 

 Mesozoic age, or era. We must now say a few words about certain 

 contemporary creatures that shared with them the spoils of those 

 old seas, so teeming with life. And first among these as being 

 more fully known come the long-necked sea-lizards, or Plesio- 

 saurs. 



The Plesiosaurus was first discovered in the Lias rocks of 

 Lyme Eegis, in the year 1821. It was christened by the above 

 name, and introduced to the scientific world by the Eev. Mr. 

 Conybeare (afterwards Dean of Llandaff) and Mr. (afterwards 

 Sir Henry) de la Beche. They gave it this name in order to 

 distinguish it from the Ichthyosaurus, and to record the fact that 

 it was more nearly allied to the lizard than the latter. 1 Cony- 

 beare, with the assistance of De la Beche, first described it in a 

 now-classic paper read before the Geological Society of London, 

 and published in the Transactions of that Society in the year 



1 The name is derived from two Greeks words plesios, near, or allied to, 

 and sauros, a lizard. 



