CHAPTER V 
THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES p 
r 
“ The wonders of geology exercise every fkculty 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 question to one’s j 
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 
contemporary creatures that shared with them the spoils of those 
old seas, so teeming with life. And first among these — as being i 
more fully known — come the long-necked sea-lizards, or Plesio- 
saurs. 1 
■ 1 
The Plesiosaurus was first discovered in the Lias rocks of 1 
Lyme Eegis, in the year 1821. It was christened by the above j 
name, and introduced to the scientific world by the Kev. Mr. ' 
Conybeare (afterwards Dean of Llandaff) and Mr. (afterwards j 
Sir Henry) de la Beche. They gave it this name in order to I 
distinguish it from the Ichthyosaurus, and to record the fact that 
it was more nearly allied to the lizard than the latterd 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 
1 The name is derived from two Greeks words — plesios, near, or allied to, 
and sauros, a lizard. 
