58 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
or the cartilaginous, as a series, of the osseous. The ar- 
rangement is parallel, not consecutive; but the parallelism, 
if I may so express myself, seems to be that of a longer with 
a shorter line ;— the cartilaginous fishes, though much less 
numerous in their orders and families than the cther, stretch far- 
ther along the scale in opposite directions, at once rising higher 
and sinking lower than the osseous fishes. The cartilaginous 
order of the sturgeons, — a roe-depositing tribe, devoid alike of 
affection for their young, or of those attachments which give 
the wild beasts of the forest partners in their dens, — may be 
regarded as fully abreast of by much the greater part of the 
osseous fishes, in both their instincts and their organization. 
The family of the sharks, on the other hand, and some of 
the rays, rise higher, as if to connect the class of fish with 
the class immediately above it—that of reptiles. Many of 
them are viviparous, like the mammalia—attached, it is 
said, to their young, and fully equal even to birds in the 
strength of their connubial attachments. ‘The male, in some 
instances, has been known to pine away and die when de- 
prived of his female companion.* But then, on the other 
hand, the cartilaginous fishes, in some of their tribes, sink as 
low beneath the osseous as they rise above them in others. 
The suckers, for instance, a cartilaginous family, are the most 
imperfect of all vertebral animals; some of them want even 
* Some of the osseous fishes are also viviparous — the “ viviparous 
blenny,” for instance. The evidence from which the supposed affee- 
tion of the higher fishes for their offspring has been inferred, is, I 
am afraid, of a somewhat equivocal character. The love of the sow 
for her litter hovers, at times, between that of the parent and that of 
the epicure; nor have we proof enough, in the present state of ich- 
thyological knowledge, to conclude to which side the parental love 
of the fish inclines. The cynnubial affections of some of the higher 
