“ Två ,” says he.

“What two? Does he mean that there are only two animals?”

“He is right,” said my uncle, whose glass has never left his eye.

“Surely you must be mistaken,” I cried.

“No: the first of those monsters has a porpoise’s snout, a lizard’s head, a crocodile’s teeth; and hence our mistake. It is the ichthyosaurus (the fish lizard), the most terrible of the ancient monsters of the deep.”

“And the other?”

“The other is a plesiosaurus (almost lizard), a serpent, armoured with the carapace and the paddles of a turtle; he is the dreadful enemy of the other.”