88 THE OPEN BOOK OF NATURE 
fortunate ; you never can tell. A wonderful “ find ” 
was made nearly thirty years ago in a coal-mine 
near Brussels ; in some soft rock were found remains — 
of twenty-two monster Iguanodons. The restored 
skeletons of seven of these are now in the Brussels 
Museum, and a cast of one of them may be seen in 
the London Natural History Museum. See it if 
you can. | 
I must mention both the Ichihyosaurus (Greek, 
ichthys =a fish, and sauros= lizard) and the Plesio- 
saurus (Greek, plésios=near to, and sauros). As 
its name implies, the Ichthyosaurus was a fish- 
lizard ; it sometimes attained a length of about forty 
feet, but there were smaller species. This animal 
had a thick body, a fishlike tail, and two pairs of 
paddles—a big pair to the front, and a smaller pair 
behind. It was largely a creature of the sea—per- 
haps of the shallow water—but it could crawl on 
land. It was fishlike in form. The Plesiosaurus 
was also a sea animal, which probably skirted the 
shores in search of prey. It had four paddles 
arranged like big oars. Its body was thick ; its 
neck was long, ending in a small head, armed with 
powerful jaws and pointed teeth. It was not nearly 
so fishlike as the last-mentioned animal. Many 
fossil relics of different species of Plesiosaurs have 
been found in the Jurassic Lias strata of the South 
of England. | 
The Teleosaurus (Greek, teleos=complete, and 
sauros) lived in Jurassic times ; its modern existing 
relative is the crocodile. The Steneosaurus was the 
Jurassic ancestor of the living alligator. 
Perhaps one of the most curious orders of extinct 
