12 
THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
ately apply to them for the square of the Circle, the key 
to the arrow-headed characters of Bactriana, and other 
such mysteries; but this worthless litter now lies in the 
British Museum, in a costly Cabinet, daubed with grease 
and sulphate of lime. I defy the reproach of personality. 
I know nothing of attending circumstances, whether of 
error in judgment, or of vanity in a donor, or of mistake 
in all ; but there the thing lies, for which, having spared 
no time, no money, I would not, nor would any one else, 
bestow a doit. 
With this nameless exception, then, and the head of 
Plate V, all the known remains of the Genus Oligostinus 
are due to Miss Anning. They stand thus: 
Species 
'Oligostinus. PI. II.Found by Miss Anning. 
Vertebral Column, alluded 
I. to by Sir P. Egerton. 
Geol. Trans. 
„ Scapulae, &c. of PI. IV.i ... . 
'Oligostinus. PI. Ill. 
Sir Everard Home’s Head 
Vide Phil. Trans. 
_ Head. Pl.V. 
A person, name unknown 
It may be observed that Mr. Johnson, of Bristol, has 
the Cranium of an Oligostinus, which was found by Miss 
Anning several years ago at Lyme, because it has been 
the appui for many a tale on account of its large eye 
sockets. It possesses no specifical identification whatever. 
CHAPTER III. 
Genus Polyostinus. Tloxu;, et oo-teov. Multis ossibus in palmipedibus. 
Species I. Capite magno, dentibus grandibus ac paucis, pectore solidissimo. Tab. VII. IX. et X. 
Species II. Compage minore et debiliore. Tab. VIII. et XI. 
B Y a singular fatality the Communis of the old names 
proves the rarest Genus of all. The most incessant 
enthusiasm of pursuit, for more than ten years, from Lyme 
Northward through all the Lias Covers in England, has 
obtained us but one “hark hallo,” and the one Conquest 
that followed it. We described the strenuous effort and 
the happy fortune by which that difficult animal was 
secured, in our Memoirs, and republish here the Plate VII, 
as the trophy of both. 
Beside the recorded generic thickness of head, compa¬ 
rative paucity of large dumpy teeth, sternal strength, and 
above all the paddles; Plate VII, presents a fact, which 
instead of being accidental to the individual, as at first 
supposed, belongs to the universal sub-Regnum itself. 
We purposely avoided any comparison between the 
Cervical apparatus of these lost Races and our own 
contemporary Cetacea, in the last Chapter, that we might 
illustrate by the most remarkable contrasts the amazing 
heterodoxy which obtains in the former; drive them 
from any community whatever from all Creatures of the 
Adamic and post-diluvian epocha, and reinstate them the 
more triumphantly in the solitary pre-eminence of Time 
and of Being, to which they advanced so many substan¬ 
tial claims. 
Of the neck,—the anchylosis and other modes by which 
the preponderating head is balanced with the attenuated 
spine, finds analogies in many actual whales; so does the 
tail of these astonishing Taninim, square with the pecu¬ 
liar attribute of that belonging to the Libyan Boa; and 
was, perhaps, imposed upon the former, as upon the last, 
for a moral purpose, lest the strong should subdue the 
weak, and at length extinguish the Pacific Kingdoms of 
Creation. 
The Cunning and cruel Snake, whetting his fangs with 
poison in treacherous lair, and following with malignant 
eye the unconscious creature of his lust, moves but at his 
peril. Beside the Conservative instinct, the victim in 
which he anticipates Death and a banquet of blood, is 
assured of one other chance for life, extorted from the 
Destroyer himself. The least motion of his voluminous 
Coils, even a shiver of rage, as the deer, or the dangerous 
Lion retires, or of fiery hope when he crosses the fatal 
Circle of the demon in wait, betrays him too soon. The 
withered tail rattles, and the Hanahasli, cursed with the 
terrific moral so well understood by the creature to whom 
Jehovah addresses it, drags it ever behind him with what 
disappointment, hate, and confusion he may. 
Ichthyosauri have a tail with a like condition, modified 
to the element in which they swam. In the Sea-serpent 
before us, the lateral spines, called “ chevrons,” cease 
from the upper third of the twenty sixth caudal vertebra, 
and thereafter occupy the inferior facet of the receding 
bones, nearly to their extremity. The Spinous or neuro¬ 
apophyses, also disappear from, about, the thirty-third 
vertebra behind the one mentioned ; a complete revolution 
in shape occurs also at the same time. The first men¬ 
tioned and three following vertebras elongate, square 
themselves, and contract in size; their articular concavi¬ 
ties nearly vanish, and the rim itself occupies half the 
paries of the bone. The anterior lateral spines which 
occupy the costal axis of the vertebrae, from the Pelvis 
backward, scarcely distinguishable from the floating 
ribs, either in size or form, graduate slowly until they 
reach the limit before mentioned. At that point the tail 
really commences, the chevron bones arming it with all 
the cocygeal attributes from the first. The spinous chord, 
no longer issuing its wonted filament to processes no¬ 
where found, pursues its paralysed way over the following 
bones, and then ceases altogether, leaving the last from 
ten to twenty vertebrae lifeless. 
Nor was this condition of the tail without advantage 
to the party himself; the auditory nerve of the prey he 
chased, may have been strung to the warning vibrations 
of this drooping and finally dead member of the Hell¬ 
hound in pursuit, as are the ears of living creatures to 
warn them upon the serpent’s track while the declination 
