ITS FAUNA. 65 



foliage, seeds, fruits, and roots of the one kingdom become 

 the indispensable sustenance of the vegetable-feeders of the 

 other; while the vegetable-feeders in turn become the food 

 of the carnivora. Among the vertebrata the actions and 

 reactions of life are more immediate and apparent, and in 

 them alone are manifested all the higher offices of vitality. 

 Sense, instinct, volition, reason, and moral perception, mark 

 the line of ascent. The vital predominates over the mate- 

 rial, and in the- culminating order (Bimana) the psycholo- 

 gical rise superior to the physiological functions. 



Such are the leading divisions of the animal kingdom, 

 which are again divided and subdivided into families, and 

 genera, and species each minor group presenting a distinct 

 and determinate pattern on the great web of created exist- 

 ence. By a study of these patterns, and a knowledge of 

 their manifold relations, the zoologist is enabled to arrive 

 at some intelligible idea of the scheme of existing vitality ; 

 and so, possessed of similar knowledge, the palaeontologist 

 strives to reunite his scattered fragments, and to assign to 

 them their proximate place in the still greater scheme 

 which combines the present with the past, and the forms 

 that have become extinct with those that still flourish 

 around us. In the study of Fossil Zoology, or Palseo- 

 Zoology, as it is termed, much more satisfactory progress 

 has been made than in the sister department of Fossil 

 Botany, the harder structures of animals (corals, shells, 

 crusts, scales, scutes, teeth, and bones) being better preserved 

 than the softer and more perishable tissues of vegetation. 

 It is true that many of these fragments are widely scattered 

 and sorely mutilated, that marine forms are relatively 

 more abundantly retained than those of terrestrial origin, 

 that only the merest specks of the fossiliferous strata have 

 yet been examined, and that the sea now rolls over strati- 



