92 



NATURE OF THE TRILOBITE. 



Every one familiar with the history of the Trilo- 

 bites, is aware that a good deal of controversy has 

 existed among naturalists, respecting the precise 

 link in the grand chain of organized beings, these sin- 

 gular fossil animals, should occupy. Professor Brong- 

 niart, Dr. Dekay, Audouin, and several other acute 

 observers, have placed them in the vicinity of the Li- 

 muli, and other Entomostraca with numerous feet; 

 while P. A. Latreille and others, presuming that these 

 animals were destitute of locomotive organs, as no 

 vestige of them has ever been discovered, fix their 

 natural position in the neighbourhood of the Chi- 

 tonesj or rather that they constituted the original 

 stock of the Articulata, being connected on the one 

 hand with these latter Mollusca, and on the other 

 with those first mentioned, and even with the Glome- 

 ris.* It was our original intention to have closed 

 this Monograph with a short history of these theories 

 and of the notion advanced by Latreille and others, 

 that the Trilobites have been annihilated by some 

 ancient revolution of our planet, All these matters, 

 we think, are now put to rest by the late discovery 

 of some living Trilobites in the southern seas, near 

 the Falkland Islands. In the cabinet of the Albany 

 Institute, we have examined some of these recent 

 animals, which have very nearly the size and general 



* See Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, vol. iii. pp. 1356. 



