304 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. ix. 



meant well, and should have been well taken. 

 Had some chat with Eastlake about Westminster : 

 he has two nephews at Mr. Rigaud's. . . . 

 Hearing the word " Westminster," Croly broke in 

 by asking me if Buckland was not in point of 

 fact a great humbug. I defended the Dean to 

 the best of my ability against the battery of wit 

 and sarcasm brought to bear against him. As to 

 the hyaenas in Kirkdale, these and all the other 

 groups of fossils were clearly explicable to Croly 

 by the fact of there having been grand battues 

 after the deluge. As men spread they rose en 

 masse against the wild beasts, killed the hysenas 

 off at one go in Yorkshire, for example, and buried 

 them in the Kirkdale Cave. Then as to the sea, 

 three-fourths of the earth was covered by it ; it 

 had its hills and valleys, there might still exist 

 broods of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, which 

 might live for years or all their lives without 

 coming to the surface or ever being seen. I 

 replied that an ichthyosaur could not have lived 

 an hour, probably, submerged, without being 

 drowned, because it had lungs and breathed air. 

 Croly contended against the possibility of our 

 knowing that fact without having dissected a living 

 animal. I showed how our knowledge of such 

 was as certain as that of Leverriers of the planet 

 which, perhaps, he has never yet himself seen. 

 It was a curious example of the impossibility, 

 after a certain age and habit of thought, of the 



