Читать книгу Peter Parley's Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky онлайн

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From its long neck, which, although it was strengthened by the solid joints and peculiar shapes of the bones, was not very strong, and its small head and jaws, the Plesiosaurus could not have been near a match for its neighbour, the Icthyosaurus, in combat, even when the individuals were of the same size; neither would its form adapt it for cutting through the water so quickly. It must, therefore, no doubt, have often fallen a prey to that voracious monster. Perhaps, however, it often played him a trick when he was pursuing it by running on shore out of his reach; or it might mostly have kept out of his way in very shallow water amongst the rushes and reeds, where it could every now and then dart its long neck like a swan, down at the little fish that came near it; or else suddenly reaching aloft into the air, it may have seized upon some unlucky insect, or Pterodactyle, (a sort of bat of which I shall presently speak) and then laid down as quiet under the rushes as if nothing had happened, waiting for its next mouthful.