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These fish belong to the genera Acrodus, Hybodus, Gyrolepis, and Saurichthys. Hybodus plicatilis, Agassiz. Teeth. Saurichthys apicalis, Agassiz. Tooth; natural size and magnified. Gyrolepis tenuistriatus, Agassiz. Scale; natural size and magnified. Remains of saurians, Plesiosaurus among others, have also been found in the bone-bed, and plates of an Encrinus.
It is supposed to have lived in shallow seas and estuaries, and to have breathed air like the Ichthyosaur and our modern cetacea. One specimen of Ichthyosaurus platydon, from the Lias at Lyme, now in the British Museum, must have belonged to an animal more than 24 feet in length; and there are species of Plesiosaurus which measure from 18 to 20 feet in length.
The cutter, meanwhile, relieved of the heavy drag upon her of the carcass of the dead plesiosaurus, began to slide rapidly away from the vicinity of the fighting monsters, and would soon have left them far behind. But this did not at all suit Harry, who, having undertaken to destroy the ferocious reptiles, was by no means inclined to leave his task less than half done.
And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus was asked for he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other things.
But before he could turn to remonstrate she was volubly bidding him not to go off into a brown study over some plesiosaurus, and forget all about his charge, or make a mistake and introduce her to the dinotherium, instead of Professor Macon; then, gayly waving her hand, she vanished behind the closing door.
A fine passion-flower or vine encircles the porch, peacocks strut and drink from an altar, while, on the other hand, lions mangle a man and a sheep, and horrible composite monsters, resembling the prehistoric plesiosaurus, bite each other's necks.
The best of modern prizes may be puny in comparison with those which caused distress to the giant molluscs of the age when the Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, and Pterodactylus were the aristocrats of the animal world.
In what quadruped, for instance, do we find the first ancestor of the huge and sagacious elephant? What humble lizard gave birth to those monsters of the fossil world, the plesiosaurus and megalosaurus, thirty or forty feet in length? Man, of course, upon this theory, is only a more perfectly developed monkey, or chimpanzee.
The reptiles, which are very abundant in this division, consist partly of saurians, referred by Owen and Mantell to eight genera, among which, besides those already enumerated, we find the Megalosaurus and Plesiosaurus. The Pterodactyl also, a flying reptile, is met with in the same strata, and many remains of Chelonians of the genera Trionyx and Emys, now confined to tropical regions.
The largest balsa that Harry had ever seen upon the lake was not nearly big enough for the purpose; a hooked plesiosaurus would drag it under water without an effort, and then what would become of its occupants? The probabilities were too awful for contemplation, and the idea was not to be entertained for a moment.
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