Note 22 — Chapter XXVIII · A VERY FEW REMARKS WITH REFERENCE TO THE DELUGE.

The small number of enormous animals that have existed since the Deluge, may be a consequence of this shutting out of all but a very few. We are not told how many creatures died in the ark; some of those least useful to man may have gone: but, even if none died, the few that quitted the ark could hardly have long withstood the rapid increase of enemies, unless their increase had been proportionably quick. Whether Job had himself seen, or only heard of, the leviathan and the behemoth, does not appear; but that those monsters were the megalosaurus and the iguanadon there seems to be little doubt (Burnett, p. 67.) Excepting the serpent in Africa, which opposed the passage of Regulus and a Roman army, I am not aware whether profane history mentions any well-authenticated instance of such enormous reptiles; but I cannot look at our representations of dragons, wyverns, griffins, &c. without thinking that, at least, tradition must have handed down the memory of some such monsters; even if a stray one here and there did not actually live in the earlier historical ages: pterodactyles, plesiosauri, ichthyosauri, &c. are too like them, in general figure, to admit of this idea being treated as altogether chimerical. Tradition, no doubt exaggerated by imagination, may have handed down the fact of such creatures having once existed: indeed the casual finding of a skeleton might confirm reports, if not originate them.