RELATIVES OF THE OYSTER. 2OQ 



modified or even abandoned with the progress of research, 

 as he remarks : " It cannot be doubted that strata in 

 which no recent species have been found may yield them 

 to more accurate and extended observation." 



" It is remarkable," says Mr. Read, "that the converse of 

 this supposition has actually obtained, and our modern seas 

 have yielded living forms hitherto characteristic of the chalk 

 formation, and regarded as antediluvial. The merit of this 

 discovery rests with Professor Ehrenberg. My o^n obser- 

 vations confirm all the important conclusions arrived at by 

 Ehrenberg, and are, fortunately, capable of easy verifica- 

 tion. It will not be necessary to send for sea mud from 

 Norway, or for Peruvian or Mexican sea water ; half a 

 dozen native oysters, or, in truth, I may say, the stomach 

 of a single oyster, will often afford us ample proof of the 

 uniformity and identity of organic life in distant ages of 

 the earth, and leave us in no doubt that the dawn of the 

 organic creation, co-existent with ourselves, reaches 

 further back into the history of the earth than has hitherto 

 appeared." 



Mr. Read then proceeds to state that the ciliary cur- 

 rents in the fringes of the oyster induced him to examine 

 the stomach, under the expectation of finding some minute 

 forms of infusoria, as it aeemed but reasonable that the 

 absence of locomotive power, and the consequent inability 

 of seeking for food, might be compensated by so beautiful 

 a contrivance for ensuring constant nourishment. His 

 expectations were fulfilled and surpassed. In the stomach 

 of every living oyster he examined, and in the intestinal 

 canal, he found myriads of living animalcules. Not only 

 were some of these of the naked kind, but others which 

 have the silicious loricae (the flinty shields), and some of 



