THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 127 
Mr. Hugh Miller’s pets the old red sandstone fishes, 
that very true vertebrate skull and brain, of which 
this is a mere mockery.! Here the whole animal, 
with his extraordinary feeding mill, (for neither 
teeth nor jaws is a fit word for it,) is enclosed 
within an ever-growing limestone castle, to the 
architecture of which the Eddystone and the Crystal 
Palace are bungling heaps; without arms or legs, 
eyes or ears, and yet capable, in spite of his per- 
petual imprisonment, of walking, feeding, and breed- 
ing, doubt it not, merrily enough. But this result 
has been attained at the expense of a complication 
of structure, which has baffled all human analysis 
and research into final causes. As much concerning 
this most miraculous of families as is needful to be 
known, and ten times more than you are likely to 
understand, may be read in Harvey’s “Sea-Side Book,” 
pp. 142-148,—pages from which you will probably 
arise with a sense of the infinity and complexity of 
Nature, even in what we are pleased to call her 
1 See Professor Sedgwick’s last edition of the ‘‘ Discourses on 
the Studies of Cambridge.” 
