16 COMPARISONS OF STRUCTURE IN ANIMALS. 



gelatine, aud sent the elastic mass into tlie 

 commercial market. It is from the sponge 

 and forms of a similar nature that the zoolo- 

 gist can ascend, by a series of gradations, more 

 or less orderly, more or less intricate and irre- 

 gular, up to the higher orders of the animal 

 world; and it is "worthy of notice, that, as a 

 rule, the lowest forms of a higher order are, 

 truly lower in the scale of organization than 

 the higher forms of a succeeding order. That 

 worm-like fish, the myxine, (^Gastrobranchus 

 ccecus,) and another fish called the lancelet, 

 (Amj^hioxus la-nceolatus, Yarrell,) are less ela- 

 borately organized than the cunning, sharp- 

 sighted, ferocious cuttlefish, the first of the 

 molluscous series. But take some of the lower 

 forms of this latter series — say the oyster or 

 mussel — and compare them with the higher 

 forms of the succeeding series, as the crab, 

 lobster, scorpion, or beetle, and the superiority 

 of these creatures is at once appreciated. So 

 when we look at the worm of the same sub- 

 kingdom we find it lower than the sea-urchins, 

 star-fishes, etc. of the next sub-kingdom in 

 rotation. And again, when we go to the lower 

 forms of this sub-kingdom aud compare them 

 with any of the last sub-kingdom {Acnta,) we 



