830 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



name Plerichthys Milleri, and said of Hugh Miller, whom he was 

 scientifically honouring, that he "would give his left hand to 

 possess such powers of description as this man". 



Apart from the still shadowy pioneer Amphibians that made the 

 digitate footprints of the Upper Devonian, we do not know from 

 that time any animals higher than Fishes, but their very existence 

 would be enough to show that the seas were rich in backhoneless 

 animals. Indeed, we find representatives of all the classes of 

 Echinoderms, many Lamp-shells or Brachiopods, and thousands of 

 species of Molluscs of aU sorts, including Ammonoids and Nautiloids. 

 There were still many Trilobites, and increasing legions of Crusta- 

 ceans; not to speak of lower Invertebrates. In short, there was a 

 rich Invertebrate fauna in the Devonian seas. The freshwater fauna 

 was naturally poor, since doubtless subjected to severe elimination 

 during the prolonged periods of aridity. On land there were already 

 Myriopods, and, at a still higher level, scorpions, but as yet no 

 insects. 



In regard to plants, the outstanding fact is that the Early 

 Devonian is the Age of the oldest terrestrial flora of which we have 

 any adequate knowledge. This flora included many simple plants, 

 best represented in a bed discovered at Rhynie in Aberdeenshire 

 by Dr. Mackie in 19 13 ; and it is difficult to refer these to any existing 

 class. They are unique as well as primitive. But among other archaic 

 flowerless types of the Devonian, there are some striking anticipations 

 of higher grades. Thus the remarkable Palceopitys Milleri, discovered 

 to his joy by Hugh Miller, who, as an anti-Evolutionist, welcomed, 

 in his Footprints of the Creator {1847), the obtrusion of "a cone- 

 bearing tree" long before it was theoretically duel "This certainly", 

 he said, "is not the sort of arrangement demanded by the exigencies 

 of the development hypothesis." It will be evident from the dates 

 that Hugh Miller was here counterblasting Robert Chambers's 

 Vestiges of Creation (1844), and not Charles Darwin's Origin of 

 Species (1859). The possibility that this middle Devonian Palceopitys 

 may represent the earliest Gymnosperm, does not raise an\7 great 

 difficulty to the modern palaeo-botanist ; for Lycopods were abundant 

 within the millions of years labelled Devonian ; and the gap between 

 them and the Conifers is not so great as it seems at first sight. 



In the Upper Devonian there was also a good representation of 

 ferns, and amid this predominantly crypt ogamic and seedless vege- 

 tation, some seed-producing Gymnosperms raised their heads in the 

 Upper Devonian. This beginning of Seed-plants was one of the most 

 momentous events in evolution. 



In the Days of the Dinosaurs. — Let us relieve a condensed 

 narrative with a more synthetic picture, which may also be of use 

 as a recapitulation. Towards the end of the Devonian or Old Red 



