152 THE RECENT. 



It is now that the more complex forms of an exogenous 

 flora are superadded to the endogens and gymnogens of the 

 mesozoic, and in their more varied forms and higher utili- 

 ties hecome not only a fitter ornament for a more varied 

 surface, but a necessary sustenance for a higher and more 

 diversified fauna. The herbs, and shrubs, and trees the 

 flowers, and fruits, and grains all that can gladden the 

 senses or satisfy the wants of man and his existing life- 

 comrades, appear with the current epoch, and by their ap- 

 pearance again confirm that fitness that ever reigns be- 

 tween the organic and inorganic aspects of creation. In 

 the animal world the advance is equally apparent, and in 

 orders where no advance appears a thousand modifications 

 present themselves. Among the protozoans the calcareous 

 sponges for the most part disappear, their place being 

 taken by those of a horny nature, while the foraminifera 

 are culminating in size and complexity of configuration. 

 The encrinites, with one or two solitary exceptions, have 

 vanished from the waters ; and the sea-urchins, so exqui- 

 sitely preserved in the chalk, are reduced by several of 

 their most beautiful and numerous families. Among the 

 shell-fish the brachiopods dwindle to a few families, the true 

 bivalves are still on the increase, the gasteropod univalves 

 become dominant in genera and species, while the shell- 

 clad cephalopods that thronged the mesozoic ocean in myr- 

 iads, perish to a solitary genus. The crustaceans become 

 less natatory and more ambulatory in their character, while 

 the insects, so imperfectly preserved in the past, now throng 

 every element air, earth, and water in apparently still 

 increasing numbers. The placoids and ganoids, so long the 

 only representatives of ichthyic life, are now on the wane, 

 and the cycloids and ctenoids appear as the prevailing or- 

 ders. Of the ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs that whale-like 

 ruled the ocean, of the megalosaurs and hylseosaurs that 



