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The Great Fish-Lizards: Ichthyosauri

Probably our readers are already more or less familiar with the drawings of the fossilised remains of Ichthyosauri to be seen in almost every text-book of geology. (Fig. 8 is from Owen's British Fossil Reptiles.) But we recommend all who take an interest in the world's lost creations to pay a visit to the great Natural History Museum, at South Kensington. The fossil reptile gallery contains a magnificent series of Ichthyosauri, about thirty in number. Of these a large number were obtained through the exertions of the late Mr. T. Hawkins, a Somersetshire gentleman, who was a most ardent collector of fossil reptiles, and who devoted himself with great enthusiasm and unsparing energy to the acquisition of a truly splendid collection of these most interesting relics of the past. Nearly seventy years ago he arranged for the purchase of his treasures by the authorities of the British Museum, and thus his collection became the property of the nation. His specimens were figured and described by him in two large folio volumes. The first was published in 1834, under the title, FIG. 8. Ichthyosaurus intermedius.

Memoirs of the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri; his second, with the same plates, in 1842, under the quaint title of The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons. The large lithographic drawings of his fine specimens were beautifully executed by Scharf and O'Neil. The plates are the only really valuable part of these two curious and ill-written books.