436 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



He concludes with the question "To which of the re- 

 cognized classes of created beings can this huge rover of 

 the ocean be referred ? " 



I reply : " To the Cephalopoda." There is not one of 

 the above judiciously summarized characteristics that is 

 not supplied by the great calamary, and its ascertained 

 habits and peculiar mode of locomotion. 



Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the 

 balance of probability is contrary to the supposition that 

 any of the gigantic marine saurians of the secondary 

 deposits should have continued to live up to the present time. 

 And yet I am bound to say, that this does not amount 

 to an absolute impossibility, for the evidence against it is 

 entirely negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be 

 in existence some congeners of these great reptiles entirely 

 inconsistent with zoological science. Dr. J. E. Gray, late of 

 the British Museum, a strict zoologist, is cited by Mr. Gosse 

 as having long ago expressed his opinion that some un- 

 described form exists which is intermediate between the 

 tortoises and the serpents.* 



Professor Agassiz, too, is adduced by a correspondent of 

 the Zoologist (p. 2395), as having said concerning the present 

 existence of the Enaliosaurian type that " it would be in 

 precise conformity with analogy that such an animal should 



* Dr. Gray wrote in his ' Synopsis of Genera of Reptiles,' in the 

 Annals of Philosophy, 1825 : "There is every reason to believe from 

 general structure that there exists an affinity between the tortoises and 

 the snakes ; but the genus that exactly unites them is at present 

 unknown to European naturalists ; which is not astonishing when we 

 consider the immense number of undescribed animals which are daily 

 occurring. If I may be allowed to speculate from the peculiarities of 

 structure which I have observed, I am inclined to think that the union 

 will most probably take place by some newly discovered genera 

 allied to the marine or fluviatile soft-skinned turtles and the marine 

 serpent." 



