ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT. 73 



degree more rude than we might expect to see exemplified 

 on the lichen-encnisted shield of some ancient tombstone of 

 that House of Avenel which bore as its arms the effigies of 

 the Spectre Lady. Children have a peculiar knack in de- 

 tecting such resemblances ; and the discovery of the angel in 

 the cranium of the Asterolepis I owe to one of mine.* 



* The gap shown in the cranial buckler, in advance of the little plate 

 between the eyes (fig. 29), I was unable to fill from actual observation 

 at the time when the drawing was made ; and as I was unwilling to 

 venture on an arbitrary restoration, I suffered the space to remain un- 

 occupied in the print, as in the specimen from which it had been taken. 

 I succeeded, however, shortly after, in disinterring from the rocks of 

 Thurso a well-marked detached specimen of the keystone-shaped plate 

 by which the gap had been filled ; and in the course of the following 

 winter I received from my friend Mr Dick a fine cranial buckler, nearly 

 jntire, in which the plate occupied its proper place. It wUl be seen 

 from the accompanying wood-cut (fig. 30), which represents the little 



Fig. 30. 



detached plate on both sides, that it was not without its share of nice 

 carpentry, — scarping and mitring, as a joiner would say, — on the edges 

 which came in contact with the three adjacent plates. I may be per- 

 mitted to record here a brief anecdote connected with this subject, illus- 

 trative of the quickness of eye possessed by one of the most distinguished 

 of English geologists. The gap in the print had struck the eye of Pro- 

 fessor Sedgwick as unnatural : it was not the proper finish, he argued ; 

 and when in autumn last (that of 1850) he visited my collection, accom- 

 panied by Sir Roderick Murchison and Dr John Fleming, he brought the 

 volume with him to compare the print with the original. Ere his visit, 

 however, I had procured both the detached plate figured above and the 

 specimen from Mr Dick, which exhibited it lying in its proper place ; and 

 I referred him to the latter as the true authority for determining how 

 xiature had given the last finish to the cranial buckler of the Asterolepis. 

 " Ay !" he exclaimed, as he eagerly knelt down to examine the specimen, 

 and passed his fingers over the keystone-like plate, — '* Ay, this is a finish 

 of the right kind ! — this wiU do." 



