CHAPTER IV. 



THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 



"The wonders of geology exercise every faculty of the mind reason, 

 memory, imagination ; and though we cannot put our fossils to the question, 

 it is something to be so aroused as to be made to put the questions to one's 

 self." HUGH MILLER. 



THE fish-lizards, described in our last chapter, were not the only 

 predaceous monsters that haunted the seas of the great Mesozoic 

 age, or era. We must now say a few words about certain con- 

 temporary creatures that shared with them the spoils of those 

 old seas, so teeming with life. And first among these as being 

 more fully known come the long-necked sea-lizards, or Plesio- 

 saurs. 



The Plesiosaurus was first discovered in the Lias rocks of 

 Lyme-Regis, in the year 1821. It was christened by the above 

 name, and introduced to the scientific world by the Rev. Mr. 

 Conybeare (afterwards Dean of Llandaff) and Mr. (afterwards 

 Sir Henry) de la Beche. They gave it this name in order to 

 distinguish it from the Ichthyosaurus, and to record the fact that 

 it was more nearly allied to the lizard than the latter. 1 Cony- 

 beare, with the assistance of De la Beche, first described it in 

 a now-classic paper read before the Geological Society of 

 London, and published in the Transactions of that Society in 

 the year 1821. In a later paper (1824) he gave a restoration 



1 The name is derived from two Greek words plesios^ near, or allied to, 

 and sauros, a lizard, 



