238 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
faculty of perceiving their distinguishing colors, however 
well marked these might be. The petals of the rose have 
appeared to them of the same sombre hue with its stalk ; and - 
they have regarded the ripe scarlet cherry as undistinguisha- 
ble in tint from the green leaves under which it hung. The 
face of nature to such men must have for ever rested under 
a cloud; and a cloud of similar character hangs over the pic- 
torial restorations of the geologist. The history of this and 
the last chapter is a mere profile drawn in black, an outline 
without color—in short, such a chronicle of past ages as 
might be reconstructed, in the lack of other and ampler ma- 
terials, from tombstones and charnel-houses. I have had to 
draw the portrait from the skeleton. My specimens show 
the general form of the creatures I attempt to describe, and 
not a few of their more marked peculiarities ; but many of 
the nicer elegancies are wanting; and the ‘complexion to 
which they have come” leaves no trace by which to discover 
the complexion they originally bore. And yet color is a 
mighty matter to the ichthyologist. The ‘“ fins and shining 
scales,” “the waved coats, dropt with goid,” the rainbow 
dyes of beauty of the watery tribes, are connected often with 
more than mere external character. It is a curious and in- 
teresting fact, that the hues of splendor in which they are 
bedecked are, in some instances, as intimately associated 
with their instincts — with their feelings, if I may so speak — 
as the blush which suffuses the human countenance is asso- 
ciated with the sense of shame, or its tint of ashy paleness or 
of sallow with emotions of rage, or feelings of a panic ter- 
ror. Pain and triumph have each their index of color among 
the mute inhabitants of our seas and rivers. Poets themselves 
have bewailed the utter inadequacy of words to describe the 
varying tints and shades of beauty with which the agonies of 
