568 PLESIOSAURUS. 



505. Still more extraordinary in its conformation, was the 

 animal known under the name of the Plesiosaurus ; which has 

 been designated by Cuvier as the most heteroclite, that is, 

 made up of the most unexpected combination of parts, of any 

 that had come under his knowledge. To the head of a Lizard, 



FIG. 338. Pi-EsrosAURUS. 



it united the teeth of a Crocodile ; a neck of enormous length, 

 resembling the body of a Serpent ; the trunk and tail having 

 the proportions of an ordinary Quadruped ; the ribs resembling 

 those of the Chameleon ; and the paddles being like those of the 

 Whale. " Such," says Dr. Buckland, " are the strange com- 

 binations of form and structure in the Plesiosaurus ; a genus, 

 the remains of which, after interment for thousands of years, 

 amidst the wreck of millions of the inhabitants of the ancient 

 earth, are at length recalled to light by the researches of the 

 geologist, and submitted to our examination in nearly as perfect 

 a state as the species that are now existing upon the earth." 

 The Plesiosaurus was evidently a marine animal ; and, if ever 

 it visited the land, its motions must have been very awkward. 

 The probability is, that it swam habitually on or near the sur- 

 face of the water, arching back its long neck like the Swan, and 

 occasionally darting it down at the fish which happened to float 

 within its reach. Or it may have lurked in shoal water along 

 the coast, like the long-necked Emydae of the present time 

 ( 487) ; suddenly darting at such fish or reptiles as approached 

 its place of concealment. The neck had no less than forty 

 vertebrae in some species ; a greater number than exists in any 

 other known animal, the Swan having but twenty-three. 



