82 EXTINCT MONSTERS 



marine, is almost equally so, from the remains with which it is 

 universally associated ; that it may occasionally have visited the 

 shore, the resemblance of its extremities to those of the turtle 

 may lead us to conjecture ; its motion, however, must have been 

 very awkward on land; its long neck must have impeded its 

 progress through the water, presenting a striking contrast to the 

 organisation which so admirably fits the Ichthyosaurus to cut 

 through the waves. 



" May it not therefore be concluded (since, in addition to these 

 circumstances, its respiration must have required frequent access 

 of air) that it swam upon or near the surface, arching back its 

 long neck like the swan, occasionally darting it down at the fish 

 which happened to float within its reach ? It may, perhaps, have 

 lurked in shoal-water along the coast, concealed among the sea- 

 weed, and, raising its nostrils to a level with the surface from a 

 considerable depth, may have found a secure retreat from the 

 assaults of dangerous enemies ; while the length and flexibility of 

 its neck may have compensated for the want of strength in its 

 jaws and its incapacity for swift motion through the water, by the 

 suddenness and agility of the attack which they enabled it to 

 make on every animal fitted for its prey, which came within its 

 extensive sweep." 



More than twenty species of long-necked sea-lizards are known 

 to geologists. 



Professor Owen, in his great work on British Fossil Reptiles, 

 when describing the huge Plesiosaurus dolichodirus from Dorset, 

 suggests that the carcase of this monster, after it sank to the 

 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 



