Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    70/408 page 62
    cephalopoda, of several orders and many genera, (including turritella, orthoceras, nautilus, beller- ophon ;) crustacea, all of them trilobites, (including trinucleus, asaphus, calymene.) ‘The cephalopoda are the most highly organized of the mollusca, possessing in some families an internal osseous skeleton, together with a heart, and a head having some resemblance in form and armature to that of the parrot tribes. This order was carnivorous, and acted the part of a police in keeping down the redundant life of the early seas. The trilobites have attracted much attention, in consequence of the great variety of species, and the peculiar struc- ture of the eye, which unequivocally tells that the sea was a clear medium at that time as at the present, and that light was then, in its general nature and relation to the vision of animals, the same as it now is. A little above the Llandeilo rocks, there have been discovered certain con- voluted forms, which are now established as anne- lides, or sea-worms, a tribe of creatures still existing, (nereidina and serpulina,) and which may often be found beneath stones on a sea-beach. One of these, figured by Mr. Murchison, is furnished with feet in vast numbers all along its body, like a centipede. The occurrence of annelides is im-
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