98 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



dimensions to which the animal must have attained 

 may be imagined, when it is known that these teeth 

 have been found measuring four inches in length, 



Fig.ll 



JAW AND TEETH OF GIGANTIC SAUROID FISH. 

 ( Megalichfhys.) 



and nearly two inches broad at the base, a size rarely 

 if ever met with even in the largest reptiles. The 

 body, covered with scales of corresponding magni- 

 tude (sometimes five inches in diameter), was well 

 shaped for swimming, being formed upon a robust 

 bony skeleton, and provided with an extremely large 

 and powerful tail, enabling it to advance with extreme 

 rapidity. It must have been eminently carnivorous, 

 and capable of pursuing and taking almost any living 

 creature among its contemporaries.* 



The HoloptycJiius^ a genus nearly allied in many 

 respects to the sauroids, seems to have differed from 

 that family in some important points of structure. 

 The specimen best known of this fish is about thirty 

 inches long without the tail, and exhibits the most 



* Although unquestionably a fish of large size, and, compared with 

 other fishes of the ganoid order, truly gigantic, it was by no means so with 

 reference to many existing tribes. The ganoid fishes, however, were 

 generally small or of moderate dimensions. 



t 'OXof (Mos\ entire, complete ; and Trrvxn (ptyche), a wrinkle, or 

 fold : the fish's scales being entirely covered with wrinkled markings. 



