This great uncouth beast presents some curious anomalies in his constitution, being planned on different lines to anything now living, and presenting, as so many other extinct animals do, a mixture, or fusion, of types that greatly puzzled the learned men of the time when his remains were first brought to light, after their long entombment in the Lias rocks forming the cliffs on the coast of Dorset. Some have christened him a "sea-dragon," and such indeed he may be considered. But the name Ichthyosaurus, given above, has received the sanction of high authority, and, moreover, serves to remind us of the fact that, although in many respects a lizard, he yet retains in his bony framework the traces of a remote fishy ancestry. So we will call him a fish-lizard. We remember in our young days the amiable endeavours of Mr. "Peter Parley" to introduce us to the wonders of creation; and his account of the Ichthyosaurus particularly impressed itself on our youthful imagination. How surprised that inestimable instructor of youth would be could he now see the still more wonderful remains that have been brought to light from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America! The curious quotation given at the head of the present chapter refers to a widespread belief, prevalent among the highly civilised nations of antiquity, that the world was once inhabited by dragons, or other monsters "of mixed shape" and characters. To the student of ancient history traces of this curious belief will be familiar. Sir Charles Lyell refers to such a belief when he says, in his _Principles of Geology_, "The Egyptians, it is true, had taught, and the Stoics had repeated, that the earth had once given birth to some monstrous animals that existed no longer." It may be surprising to some, but it is undoubtedly the fact, that modern scientific truths were partly anticipated by the civilised nations of long ago. Take the ideas of the ancients as interpreted from the records of Egypt, Chaldæa, India, and China; and you will find that our discoveries in geology, astronomy, and ethnology go far to prove that the traditions of these ancient peoples, however derived, after making due allowance for Oriental allegory and poetic hyperbole, are not far from the truth. To the Babylonian tradition of the monstrous forms of life at first created we have already alluded; but in other fields of discovery we find the same foreshadowing of discoveries made in our own day. Take the vast cycles of Egyptian tradition, wherein the stars returned to their places after a circle of constant change, only to start again on their unwearied round; the atomic theory of Lucretius, now expanded and incorporated into modern chemistry; or the philosopher's pregnant saying--_Omne vivum ex ovo_ ("Every living thing comes from an egg"). These and other examples might be cited to show how true the old saying is, "There is nothing new under the sun." In the writings of