LES ENCHA1NEMENTS DU MONDE ANIMAL 93 



Primary times were protected by thick walls and 

 calcareous tablets, whence their name of Tabu- 

 lated ; that some among them, such as the 

 Calceola, closed their orifices by a lid ; that 

 many Brachiopods were articulated with their two 

 valves strongly geared into each other ; that 

 several genera of Cephalopods possessed a shell with 

 a narrow, and, as it were, almost contorted open- 

 ing ; that certain fishes had even cuirasses of 

 bony plates protecting the head, back, belly, and 

 also the arms ; that other fishes, called Ganoids, 

 were covered with thick bony scales, ornamented 

 with a brilliant enamel, and forming an impenetrable 

 envelope ; and, finally, that the air-breathing Verte- 

 brates, the Amphibians, and the Reptiles, had a 

 ventral plastron likewise formed of bony scales. 



On the other hand, these early beings had fewer 

 enemies : 



" The creatures of primary times found their 

 salvation in the shell or cuirass which covered 

 them, while those of the end of the Tertiary era 

 and of our own epoch mostly sought protection in 

 flight." 



All these considerations have a certain poetical 

 seduction about them, but are, for the most part, 

 extremely disputable. There existed, in fact, in 

 the earliest seas animals with but little protection, 

 the Brachiopods with horned shells, for example, 

 which in no way prevented certain of them, the 

 Lingulse, from surviving in our existing seas. In the 

 Cambrian and Silurian epochs we are acquainted 

 with tubular Polyps without walls or calcareous 

 tablets, Medusae entirely gelatinous, almost soft 



