Animals Before Man 



Another and probably more correct view is 

 that these resemblances to crabs are not due to 

 any kinship between the two groups, but are 

 the result of living under similar conditions 

 and pursuing a similar mode of life. Still, it 

 is hardly to be wondered at that when, many 

 years ago, Hugh Miller gazed upon the first 

 Pterichthys, just brought to light by a stroke 

 of his hammer, he should have thought that he 

 had discovered a creature combining the char- 

 acters of a crab and a turtle, or that a natural- 

 ist with only imperfect specimens at his com- 

 mand imagined them to represent some new 

 and strange beetle. 



These quaint little creatures stand quite by 

 themselves in the shadow of the distant past ; 

 they left no successors, and we do not know 

 their ancestors nor their next of kin, although 

 it is surmised that, in spite of the seeming dif- 

 ferences between them, they are closely related 

 to the lampreys. A little lamprey-like creature 

 found in the Lower Devonian rocks of Scot- 

 land is regarded as having an important bear- 

 ing on the possible origin of the strange fishes 



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