2. The Plesiosaurus is allied in some respects to the former, but in other points differs so materially, and possesses characters so strange, as to claim for it a degree of monstrosity unparalleled, even amid the ruins of the old world. Here we have the union of the serpent and chameleon, with a trunk and tail having the proportions of an ordinary quadruped. The mechanism of the lungs and ribs is peculiar, showing that the animal must have breathed with such force and rapidity, as to have rendered the color of the skin changeable, like the chameleon or dying dolphin. The neck bore a resemblance to that of the swan; the feet and motions were allied to those of the turtle; and, from the varied intensity of its inspirations, it is conjectured that the creature inhabited the shallow pools and marshy waters along the coast. The body would thus be concealed among the rank vegetable aquatics; while, with its long flexible neck, it would be prepared suddenly to pounce upon its prey. Mr. Conybeare compares the Plesiosaurus to a turtle stripped of its shell; and the ribs, being connected by transverse abdominal processes, present a close analogy to those of the chameleon. Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri have been found in the secondary strata, from the lias to the chalk inclusive; of the former, twelve species are known and described, and nearly twenty of the latter. The most remarkable of the enalio-saurii or marine reptiles, is the Plesiosaurus-dolichodeirus, discovered in the lias of Lyme-Regis, and which is fertile in the remains of all the animals of that remote and wonder-producing epoch. [Illustration: Pterodactyle.] 3. Another example, taken from the lias, is of its kind even more startling than either of the preceding. This consists of the remains of an animal called the Pterodactyle, or flying reptile, which, more than anything ever conceived or bred in poet’s brain, resembles what Milton must have intended, when to the great arch-fiend he gave a form and flexibility of body, that “Swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”