OOLITIC ERA. 139 



i 



Transferring the attributes of the infuriated human mind 

 to the unreasoning brute, they picture every species lying 

 in wait for his neighbour writhing in savage combat for 

 supremacy, and mangling with their horrid fangs even 

 where prey does not become a necessity. Alas ! for man's 

 mistaken notion of creation's life-scheme ; as if, even in a 

 world of reptiles, there were not a thousand checks and 

 compensations ever actively at work to secure the greatest 

 happiness of the greatest numbers. No doubt the flesh- 

 eater preyed on the plant-eater, and the weak succumbed 

 where the strong exulted ; but death comes unconsciously 

 quick where the pre} T er strikes from necessity, and the 

 fall of the sickly gives wider verge to the enjoyment of 

 the healthy survivor. The wants of nature supplied, and 

 then, as now, the gigantic herbivora rolled sportively 

 among the over- topping herbage, or stood drowsily dream- 

 ing under the shade of the noonday forest ; while the 

 carnivora gambolled in the open waters, or lazily sunned 

 themselves on the ebbing sea-shore. Wherever life prevails, 

 there also is meted out to it its measure of enjoyment, and 

 man only errs when, describing the lower animals, he in- 

 vests them with passions and feelings unfortunately too 

 frequently his own. But cold-blooded air-breathers, how- 

 ever varied in size, form, and function, were not destined to 

 be the culminating orders in the world's life-scheme. The 

 divine creational idea, fixed from the beginning, was steadily 

 evolving itself into higher and higher types ; and along 

 with this overwhelming exuberance of reptiles, the line of 

 triassic birds was continued in such forms as palceornis 

 (ancient -bird), while in certain areas there appeared the 

 higher manifestations of mammalian development. Small 

 insectivorous quadrupeds amphitlierium (doubtful-beast), 

 pliascolotherium (pouched-beast), stereognathus (thick-jaw), 

 placjiaulax (oblique-grooved tooth), &c. have been detected 



