136 THE OLD BED SANDSTONE. 



the encrinites, star-fish, and shell-fish seem thus to have 

 had a partial distribution in the waters of the period, the 

 annelids or worms, the Crustacea, and the fishes abounded 

 throughout, and this in numerous and varied specific aspects. 

 Trails and burrows occur in every division of the system, 

 from mere thread-like windings on the surfaces of the strata 

 to burrows in the sandstones as thick as a man's arm ; and 

 Crustacea (trilobites and eurypterites) throng especially the 

 lower division in strange and often gigantic forms. Indeed 

 the huge lobster-like forms of these eurypterites eurypterus. 

 pterygotus, andstylonurus with their long segmented bodies 

 void of appendages, and their broad carapaces, like the king- 

 crab's, with limbs and jaws beneath, are characteristic fea- 

 tures of the Old Red fauna. Ranging from three to six feel 

 and upwards in length, with their toothed prehensile claws 

 and oar-like swimming feet, no crustacean form has since 

 equalled them in size, though few, perhaps, are more rudi- 

 mentary in their structure. Like most articulated animals, 

 these Crustacea seem to have been readily dismembered b} 

 decay, hence their limbs and segments are frequently detached 

 and scattered ; and yet so wonderful has the preservative 

 process been, even in the midst of dismemberment and de- 

 cay, that their egg-packets, or masses of spawn (known as 

 Parka decipiens, from Parkhill in Fife, where first detected) 

 are common throughout the lower flagstones. How imper 

 ishable the record, could we only lay it bare, that nature 

 keeps of her bygone aspects and operations ! 



rocks of Devonshire as a whole do not represent the Old Red Sandstone o 

 Scotland, of Northern Europe, and North America as a whole ; and henc< 

 the inappropriateness of Devonian as a substitute for the earlier anc 

 more descriptive term Old Red Sandstone. The designation may yet bi 

 found to be an appropriate one for a set of formations that apparently 

 lie between the true Old Ked and the Carboniferous proper ; but to em 

 ploy it as synonymous with what was originally understood as the Olc 

 Eed Sandstone system is, in our opinion, an error and misapplication. 



