FOSSIL FLORA AND FAUNA. 135 



reptile, bird, or mammal has yet "been detected in its strata ; 

 and all that we know of its fauna is strictly aquatic, and 

 in all likelihood marine. 



This fauna of the waters differs, of course, like the exist- 

 ing fauna, in different seas j but viewing the whole, and 

 taking the entire range of the system through its lower, 

 middle, and upper divisions, we have illustrations of the 

 following zoological orders : Corals, encrinites, and shells 

 occur abundantly in the limestones of Devonshire, but 

 similar organisms are altogether absent from the red sand- 

 stones of Hereford and Scotland, and to a great extent also 

 from the strata as developed in the north of Europe. 

 Whether this has arisen from some peculiarity in the sea- 

 bottom, or, as has been suggested, from the Scotch beds be- 

 ing chiefly of fresh-water origin, has not been satisfactorily 

 determined ; but the fact stands undoubted that up to the 

 present time no trace of a coral, an echinoderm (star-fish or 

 encrinite), or a shell-fish has been detected in the Old Red 

 Sandstone of Scotland. With what portion of the Scottish 

 beds the Devonshire strata may have been contemporane- 

 ously deposited has not yet been determined ; but clearly 

 it was not with the lower flagstones and bouldery conglom- 

 erates of Perth and Forfar. The Devonian corals and en- 

 crinites imply waters of genial temperature ; the bouldery 

 conglomerates the reverse : and in all likelihood the two, 

 though classed under the same system, were chronologically 

 separated by ages.* But while the coral-building zoophytes, 



* This is not, perhaps, the place to enter into the question of co-ordi- 

 nation ; but we cannot refrain from repeating our conviction, expressed in 

 1856, that the term " Devonian " can never be legitimately substituted 

 for that of " Old Red Sandstone. " We have examined the strata of Devon- 

 shire from north to south and from east to west, and instead of finding 

 the equivalents of the Scottish Old Red we discovered in the Northern 

 division one set of rocks that should be ranked with the lowermost Car- 

 boniferous, and in the Southern another that was perhaps contemporane- 

 ous with portions of the middle and upper Old Red. At all events, the 



