LAND PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 53 



Instances of land vegetation previous to the Carbonigenous 

 era have been spoken of as partial and newly announced. In 

 the American lower Devonian rocks, some plants allied to 

 ferns have been found. In Portugal, under strata even lower, 

 there are coal beds, in which remains of ferns have been dis- 

 tinguished. In the American Silurians there has been found 

 a plant allied to the lepidodendron, and in the same formation 

 in England various indications of land vegetation are spoken of, 

 though they have not, as far as the author is aware, been de- 

 scribed. These facts are introduced here, instead of at any 

 earlier part of our narration, on mere grounds of literary con- 

 veniency ; it appearing inexpedient to make extensive altera- 

 tions in the original structure of the work, on account of 

 matters so isolated and perhaps scarcely as yet generally ac- 

 cepted. They may be regarded as standing in no inconsistency 

 with the general strain of the palseontological history, but only 

 like certain similar discoveries of animal remains and tracings, 

 pointing to the general probability of an earlier origin for all 

 the forms and grades of existence than was indicated by geo- 

 logy in its infant years. 



The Carboniferous formation exhibits a scanty zoology com- 

 pared with either thos'e which go before, or those which come 

 after. The mountain limestone, indeed, deposited at the com- 

 mencement of it, abounds unusually in polypiaria, crinoidea, 

 and mollusca ; but when we ascend to the coal-beds themselves, 

 the case is altered. We have then only a limited variety of 

 shell mollusks, with fragments of a few species of fishes, and 

 these are rarely or never found in the coal seams, but in the 

 shales alternating with them. Among the fishes, the conspi- 

 cuous form is the Sauroid family, which receives its name in 

 consequence of a character of teeth, scales, and even osteology, 

 resembling that of the Sauria, and evidently leading on to that 

 section of reptiles. One of the most noted species is the 

 Megalichthys Nibbertii, discovered by Dr. Hibbert Ware, in a 

 limestone bed at Burdiehouse, near Edinburgh, and of which 

 other specimens have been found in the coal measures of York- 

 shire, and low coal shales of Newcastle. The enormous size 

 of the animal is inferred from teeth belonging to it, not less 

 than four inches long. 



At this point are found the first traces of insects. The fossil 

 remains of two species belonging to the family of curculionidse, 

 as well as some relics of neuropteroils, orthopterous, and lepi- 

 dopterous insects, and a " scorpion-like creature," have been 



