138 THE STORY OF ANIMAL LIFE 



a poetess whose writings were popular with our 

 grandmothers, and deserved to be so. This is 

 not the only case in which a poet has been also a 

 zoologist : Goethe studied the science, and framed 

 a theory regarding the vertebrate skull, which he 

 regarded as consisting of a series of vertebrae. 

 In this he was less fortunate than the Italian 

 poet ; for while Chamisso's observations were cor- 

 rect, and were confirmed by subsequent writers, 

 Goethe's theory of the skull is anything but cor- 

 rect. It was made worse, too, by the specula- 

 tions of subsequent writers, who attempted to 

 follow it into detail, with the result of demon- 

 strating its absurdity. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE VERTEBRATA 



WE have spoken of the Notochord as a struc- 

 ture which precedes the formation of the spinal 

 column in Vertebrates. This needs a little more 

 definite explanation. We all know that the spinal 

 column of vertebrates is formed to protect the 

 spinal cord. This protection is, however, an after- 

 thought, so to speak, of the vertebrate structure; 

 the lowest of all vertebrates is quite without it; 

 and in the lower groups of fishes we may trace 

 various steps of its formation. But in these cases 

 where the spinal column is absent or incomplete, 

 there is a large and well-developed notochord ; 

 and in the embryo of higher vertebrates, when 

 the spinal column has not yet begun to be formed, 

 the notochord is equally a conspicuous feature. 



