NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD. 



to excavate the immense block of Lias wherein it lay 

 embedded, having endured the changes of unnum- 

 bered years, and slept the stony sleep of ages. Thus 

 was the first of these colossal reptiles exposed to the 

 wondering gaze of science ; a reptile some thirty feet 

 long, with jaws nearly two yards in length, and huge 

 saucer-like eyes ; eyes which have since been found so 

 perfect, that the petrified lenses have been disengaged, 

 and employed PS magnifiers. 



In the same strata have been found the half-digested 

 remains of the prey of these voracious creatures, and 

 more, their faecal debris, or to use the scientific term, 

 their Coproliies, or petrified fseca, from which we are 

 able to determine their intestinal conformation, and the 

 character of their usual food. 



On the shore at Lyme Regis these coprolites are so 

 abundant that they lie in some parts of the Lias scat- 

 tered over the ground like potatoes. In the Lias of 

 the Severn estuary they are yet more abundant, being 

 disposed in strata of many miles in extent, and mixed 

 so plentifully with teeth and rolled fragments of the 

 bones of reptiles and fishes, as to prove beyond question 

 that this region, having been the bottom of an ancient 

 sea, was for a long period the cloaca maxima the 

 grand receptacle of the bones and faecal remains of 

 its inhabitants. 



In variety of size, and in external form, the copro- 

 lites resemble oblong pebbles or kidney potatoes. 

 For the most part they vary from two to four inches 

 in length, and from one to two inches in diameter. 

 Some few are of much larger dimensions, and bear 

 a due proportion to the gigantic calibre of the largest 

 Ichthyosaurians ; others are small, and bear a similar 

 ratio to the more infantine members of the same 

 species, and to the smaller fishes. Some are flat and 

 amorphous, as if the substance had been ejected in a 

 semi-fluid condition ; not a few have been flattened by 

 the pressure of the superjaceut slate. Their usual 

 colour is an ashen grey, but sometimes they are 

 grey and black, and sometimes wholly black. Their 

 material, so to speak, is of a compact earthy texture, 

 resembling indurated clay, and marked by a con- 

 choidal and glossy fracture. 



Of the coprolites at Lyme Regis the structure is 

 usually tortuous, but the number of coils is very irre- 

 gular. In most cases there are three coils, in no 

 instance do they exceed six; the variations probably 

 depending on the various species of animals from which 

 they are derived. 



The section of one of these faecal balls exhibits the 

 interior arranged in a folded plate, wrapped spirally 

 round from the centre outwards, like the whorls of a 

 turbinated shell. Their exterior also retains the corru- 

 gations and minute impressions which, in a plastic 

 condition, they received from the intestines of the 

 living animals. 



Irregularly but abundantly scattered throughout 

 these fossilized faeces are the scales, and occasionally 

 the teeth and bones, of fishes, which seem to have 

 passed undigested through the bodies of the Saurians ; 

 just as the enamel of teeth, and sometimes fragments 

 of bones, are found undigested both in the recent and 

 fossil album grcccum of hyaenas. The bones are 



chiefly vertebrae of fishes and of small Ichthyosauri. 

 Hence we must conclude that these monsters of the 

 ancient deep, like many of their successors in our pre- 

 sent seas, habitually devoured the smaller and weaker 

 individuals of their own race. Probably they swal- 

 lowed their victims whole, without dividing them; in 

 which case the stomach and intestines must have 

 formed a kind of voluminous pouch, filling entirely 

 the abdominal cavity, and corresponding in size to the 

 immense development of the teeth and jaws. 



From the contents of the coprolifes we may indi- 

 rectly infer that in the conformation of their intestinal 

 canal the Ichthyosauri resembled the voracious shark and 

 dog-fish, which they also resembled in their destructive 

 propensities and powers. In the intestines of these 

 fishes we find existing an arrangement not unlike that 

 of the interior of an Archimedean screw ; an arrange- 

 ment most ingeniously adapted to increase the extent 

 of internal surface for the absorption of nutriment from 

 the food, during its passage through a coiled and con- 

 tinuous spiral tube. 



There is also abundant evidence to show the very 

 form of the minute vessels and folds of the mucous 

 membrane which lined the intestine this evidence 

 consisting of a series of vascular impressions and corru- 

 gations on the surface of the coprolite, that could only 

 have been communicated during its passage through 

 the convolutions of the intestinal tube. 



Do we ask what was the utility of these curious 

 provisions in the bowels of the extinct monsters of the 

 ancient seas? A satisfactory reply is easily given. 

 Owing to their insatiable voracity, it was needful the 

 stomach should be both large and long, leaving but 

 little space for the smaller viscera. These, therefore, 

 were reduced, as we have seen, nearly to the state of 

 a flattened tube, coiled like a corkscrew around itself. 

 While their bulk was thus materially diminished, the 

 amount of absorbent surface remained almost the same 

 as if they had been circularly disposed. 



Had a considerable expansion of intestines been 

 superadded to the enormous stomach and lungs of 

 the Ichthyosaurus, the consequent enlargement of the 

 body would have diminished the power of progressive 

 motion, to the serious detriment of an animal which 

 depended on its swiftness for the capture of its prey. 



These considerations will teach us that even small 

 and apparently mean and insignificant objects are 

 frequently well deserving the minute attention of 

 science. In the intestinal structure of the Ichthyo- 

 saurians we find an analogous system of organs to that 

 which obtains in living animals, and are thus enabled 

 to establish the continuity of the divine work, to trace 

 the links of an unbroken chain from the earliest ages 

 of creation down to the present time. The mind is 

 carried back over the waste of years to the dawn of 

 time, to the gradual formation of our planet, and 

 its alow adaptation to the wants and necessities of 

 man, its last and greatest inhabitant. '' When we 

 discover," says an illustrious geologist, " in the body 

 of an Ichthyosaurus the food which it has engulphed 

 an instant before its death, when the intervals between 

 its sides present themselves still filled with the remains 

 of fiahes which it had swallowed some ten thousand 



