56 EXTINCT MONSTERS. 



concave, showing that the backbone as a whole was less flexible 

 than in the fish-lizards. 



It may be mentioned here that Mr. Smith Woodward, of the 

 Natural History Museum, recently showed the writer a fossil 

 Plesiosaur that is being set up in the formatore's shop, in the same 

 manner that a recent skeleton might be. In this, and many 



FIG. 8. Plesiosaurus macrocephalus. 



other ways, the guardians of the national treasure-house are 

 endeavouring to make the collection intelligible and interest- 

 ing to the general public. Specimens of extinct animals thus 

 set up, give one a much better idea than when the bones are all 

 lying huddled together on a slab of rock. But it is not always 

 possible to get the bones entirely out of their rocky bed, or matrix. 



