ODD FORMS AMONG FISHES. 



537 



apparatus is very peculiar, being composed of seven pouches on each 

 side, which receive water from the lateral openings of a canal distinct 

 from the oesophagus, and discharge the same through seven branchial 

 openings on each side of the neck ; and their mouth and tongue are 

 more strange than their breathing-apparatus." The mouth is round, 

 and the tongue moves forward and backward in it like a piston, thus 

 enabling the animal to produce a vacuum to fix itself firmly to a stone 

 or any other body in the water. 



As we 2:et near the bottom of the scale in the examination of 

 fishes, we find forms which, so far as their general outline is concerned, 

 give no intimation of their true affinities. The myxines, or hags (Fig. 

 32), are of this sort: small fishes which have the general aspect of 



Fig. 32. Hag, or Mtxine (Mijxine 

 limosa, Girard). 



Fig. 33. Lancelet, or Amphioxus (Bran- 

 chionloma). 



worms, but whose plan of structure shows them to be vertebrates, 

 and whose circular mouth and piston-like tongue ally them to the 

 lampreys. 



And at the very bottom of the group of fishes we find the little 

 amphioxus, or lancelet (Fig. 33) ; and how wide is the gap between 

 this soft, nearly transparent vertebrate, without teeth or jaws, with- 

 out skeleton or real head, and with only a mere slit for a mouth, and 

 the typical fish as we see it in the shad, the cod, and the salmon ! 

 So little does the amphioxus appear like even a vertebrate, that Pal- 

 las, the naturalist who first described it, thought that it was some 

 sort of slug or snail. 



These strange forms of fishes are facts ; and the important ques- 

 tion is, What do they mean ? What has caused them ? What are 

 they for? Will they continue ? These and other questions quickly 

 suggest themselves, and are easily asked ; but are not so easily an- 

 swered. 



The whole subject of the origin and meaning of organic forms is 

 a very important one. It is not so narrow as indicated by the ques- 

 tions asked above about the queer forms of certain fishes ; but it is a 

 subject which embraces inquiry into the origin and full significance 

 of all organic forms upon the earth and within its crust. 



Are these fishes and all other organic forms juj^t as they were cre- 

 ated ? The creationist says " Yes ; " the evolutionist says " No." Sup- 

 pose we admit the doctrine that they were all created as they now 

 appear what does it mean that there are 15,000 specific forms of 

 fishes, and that a thousand, or two thousand, more or less, are of these 

 outre forms described above ? Can any one give a satisfactory an- 



