6o EXTINCT MONSTERS 
of Dr. Fraas lead us to conclude that the Ichthyosaur never 
ventured to leave the briny ocean ” to bask upon the land. 
This great uncouth beast presents some curious anomalies in 
his constitution, being planned on different lines to anything 
now living, and presenting, as so many other extinct animals 
do, a mixture, or fusion, of types that greatly puzzled the 
learned men of the time when his remains were first brought to 
light, after their long entombment in the Lias rocks forming the 
cliffs on the coast of Dorset. Some have christened him a “ sea- 
dragon,” and such indeed he may be considered. But the name 
Ichthyosaurus, given above, has received the sanction of high 
authority, and, moreover, serves to remind us of the fact that, 
although in many respects a lizard, he yet retains in his bony 
framework the traces of a remote fishy ancestry. So we will call 
him a fish-lizard. 
The curious quotation given at the head of the present chapter 
refers to a widespread belief, prevalent among the highly civilised 
nations of antiquity, that the world was once inhabited by 
dragons, or other monsters “ of mixed shape ” and characters. 
To the student of ancient history traces of this curious belief 
will be familiar. Sir Charles Lyell refers to such a belief when 
he says, in his Frinciples of Geology, “ The Egyptians, it is true, 
had taught, and the Stoics had repeated, that the earth had once 
given birth to some monstrous animals that existed no longer.” 
It may be surprising to some, but it is undoubtedly the fact, 
that modern scientific truths were partly anticipated by the 
civilised nations of long ago. 
The illustrious Cuvier, in his day, considered the fish-lizard 
to be one of the most heteroclite and monstrous animals ever 
discovered (see p. 74). He said of this creature that it possessed 
the snout of a dolphin, the teeth of a crocodile, the head and 
