Whether this living picture of old
creations in modern garb was meant to be educational for man or not, it
is at least well that we should take advantage of it in learning all it
has to teach us of the relations between the organic world of past and
present times.
There were a great variety of the Selachians in the Carboniferous
period. The wood-cuts below represent a tooth and a spine from one of
the most characteristic groups, but I have not thought it worth while to
enumerate or to figure others here, for there are no perfect specimens,
and their structural differences consist chiefly in the various form and
appearance of the teeth, scales, and spines, and would be uninteresting
to most of my readers. I would refer the more scientific ones, who may
care to know something of these details, to my investigations on Fossil
Fishes, published many years since under the title of "Recherches sur
les Poissons Fossiles."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Although the Vertebrate division of the Animal Kingdom still waited for
its higher classes, yet it had received one important addition since
the Silurian and Devonian periods. The Carboniferous marshes were not
without their reptilian inhabitants; but they were Reptiles of the
lowest class, the so-called Amphibians, those which are hatched from the
egg in an immature condition, undergoing metamorphosis after birth.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262