Bayle appears to have furnished the best idea of the Ichthyosaurus by describing it as the Whale of the Saurians--the Cetacean of the primitive seas. It was, in fact, an animal exclusively marine; which, on shore, would rest motionless like an inert mass. Its whale-like paddles, and fish-like vertebræ, the length of the tail and other parts of its structure, prove that its habits were aquatic; as the remains of fishes and reptiles, and the form of its teeth, show that it was carnivorous. Like the Whale, also, the Ichthyosaurus breathed atmospheric air; so that it was under the necessity of coming frequently to the surface of the water, like that inhabitant of the deep. We can even believe, with Bayle, that it was provided, like the Whale, with vents or blowers, through which it ejected, in columns into the air, the water it had swallowed. The dimensions of the Ichthyosaurus varied with the species, of which five are known and described. These are _Ichthyosaurus communis_, _I. platydon_, _I. intermedius_, _I. tenuirostris_, and _I. Cuvierii_, the largest being more than thirty feet in length. [Illustration: Fig. 96.--Ichthyosaurus platydon.] [Illustration: Fig. 97.--Lower jaw of Ichthyosaurus. (Dr. Buckland.)] [Illustration: Fig. 98.--Skeleton of Ichthyosaurus. Containing teeth and bones of Fishes in a coprolitic form. One-fifteenth natural size.] The short, thick neck of the Ichthyosaurus supported a capacious head, and was continued backwards, from behind the eyes, in a column composed of more than a hundred vertebræ. The animal being adapted, like the whale, for rapid movement through the water, its vertebræ had none of the invariable solidity of those of the Lizard or Crocodile, but rather the structure and lightness of those of Fishes. The section of these vertebræ presents two hollow cones, connected only by their summits to the centre of the vertebræ, which would permit of the utmost flexibility of movement. The ribs extended along the entire length of the vertebral column, from the head to the pelvis. The bones of the sternum, or that part of the frame which supported the paddles, present the same combinations with those of the sternum in the Ornithorhynchus, or Duck-billed Platypus, of New Holland, an animal which presents the singular combination of a mammalian furred quadruped having the bill of a duck and webbed feet; which dived to the bottom of the water in search of its food, and returned to the surface to breathe the air. In this phenomenon of living Nature the Creator seems to have repeated, in our days, the organic arrangements which he had originally provided for the Ichthyosaurus.