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 jDoint 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 hyaenas 
off at one go in Y orkshire, 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 Leverrier’s 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 
