MONOGRAPH 
ON 
THE FOSSIL EEPTILIA 
OF THB 
LIASSIC FORMATIONS. 
Class — BEPTILIJ, Cuv.^ 
Order — Ichthyopterygia, Given d 
Genus — Ichthyosaurus, Konig? 
A. Introduction, 
Remains of the extinct marine Reptiles, now known as IchtJigoscmrs, have attracted 
the attention of collectors and clescribers of organic fossils for nearly two centuries past. 
In Scheuchzer’s ‘ Querelae Pisciiim,’ 1708, tab. hi contains figures of the 
biconcave vertebrae of an Ichthyosaur from the Lias of Altdorf, supposed to be a 
fish. Knorr, also, in his ‘ Naturgeschichte der Versteinerungen,' vol. ii, represents, in 
figs. 5 — 7 of tab. i, vertebras of the same Reptile, as Ichthyospondylen A 
So, likewise, when the attention of more modern palaeontologists was awakened to 
remains of the remarkable subjects of the present Monograph, as in the paper by Sir Everard 
Home, Bart., F.R.S. (‘ Philos. Trans.,’ 1814), we find such described as “ Fossil Remains 
of an animal more nearly allied to Fishes than any of the other classes of animals.” 
In this paper, however, as in succeeding ones by the same author, which appeared 
in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for the years 1816, 1818, 1819, and 1820, 
the accurate and beautiful engravings of the drawings of the several subjects by 
^ Reptiles, ‘ Tableau Elementaire de I’Histoire Naturelle des Auimaux,’ 8vo, Au. vi (1797), 
p. 281. 
2 “ On the Orders of Fossil and Recent Reptilia,” ‘ Report of the British Association for the Aclvance- 
inent of Science,’ 1859, 8vo, pp. 155, 159. 
^ ‘ leones Fossilium Sectiles,’ fol., pi. xix, fig. 250. 
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