344 BUFFALO LAND. 



eleven feet. It is known as Pohjcotylus latipinnis 

 (Cope). 



The two species just described formed a small 

 representation, in our great interior sea, of an order 

 which swarmed at the same time, or near it, over the 

 gulfs and bays of old Europe. There they abounded 

 twenty to one. Perhaps one reason for this was the 

 almost entire absence of the real rulers of the waters 

 of Ancient America, viz : the Pythonoinor^hs. These 

 sea-serpents, for such they were, embrace more than 

 half the species found in the limestone rocks in Kan- 

 sas, and abound in those of New Jersey and Alabama. 

 Only four have been seen as yet in Europe. 



Researches into their structure have shown that 

 they were of wonderful elongation of form, especially 

 of tail ; that their heads were large, fiat, and conic, 

 with eyes directed partly upwards ; that they were 

 furnished with two pairs of paddles like the flippers 

 of a whale, but with short or no portion representing 

 the arm. With these flippers and the eel-like strokes 

 of their flattened tail they swam — some with less, 

 others with greater speed. They were furnished, like 

 snakes, with four rows of formidable teeth on the 

 roof of the mouth. Though these were not designed 

 for mastication, and without paws for grasping could 

 have been little used for cutting, as weapons for 

 seizing their prey they were very formidable. And 

 here we have to consider a peculiarity of these creat- 

 ures in which they are unique among animals. 

 Swallowing their prey entire, like snakes, they were 

 without that wonderful expansibility of throat, due 

 in the latter to an arrangement of levers supporting 



