96 ANIMAL LIFE PAST AND PRESENT. 



air) that it swam upon or near the surface ; arching 

 back its long neck like the swan, and 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 reach." 



Nothing that has been discovered since the date 

 when the above passage was penned can suggest 

 any more probable interpretation of the habits of 

 these creatures. 



The larger species found in the Lias attained a 

 length of about 20 feet ; but, as is so generally the 

 case, we find the size of the species gradually increas- 

 ing as we ascend in the geological scale, the culmina- 

 tion being reached in the period of the chalk, when, 

 both in Europe and North America, we meet with 

 species reaching to the enormous length of 40 feet, 

 and the joints of whose backbone measured as much 

 as 6 inches in diameter. These terrible creatures 

 must indeed have been dragons of the deep, with 

 a far more strange appearance than any of those 

 imagined in fable. 



