OF CREATION. 177 



pouch or stomach, and a similar but more delicate de- 

 fence covering the extensile proboscis. With innumer- 

 able arms widely extended in a complicated fringe, this 

 strange mass of living stone expanded itself, and drew 

 within its cold embrace the floating bodies on which it 

 fed. One might fancy that some marine Briareus, 

 looking on the strife and carnage of this great rep- 

 tilian period, whose horrors might well have had the 

 fabled effect attributed to the snakes of Medusa's 

 head, had suddenly become petrified, retaining how- 

 ever its vital powers, and, with its complicated skele- 

 ton, continued to perform its office by cleansing the 

 sea of an accumulation of decaying animal matter. 



But while the Pentacrinite was thus the floating 

 scavenger of that period, the bottom of the sea, al- 

 though not covered with encrinites and corals, was 

 well provided with other animals performing the same 

 part in nature. The great beds of Gryphea the oys- 

 ters of their day are sufficient proof of this, and the 

 Terebratulse and Spirifers tell the same tale. Among 

 the invertebrate animals, however, the ammonite and 

 the belemnite were undoubtedly the most remarkable, 

 and, at least in certain districts of the sea, were enor- 

 mously abundant. Some of them being enclosed in 

 shells, some enclosing shells, and some perhaps not 

 provided with any solid framework, swam about, or 

 dwelt at various depths, and by their carnivorous and 

 voracious habits greatly tended to keep down the 

 exuberance of the lower forms of life. 



The neighbourhood of the shore, and the shallow 

 banks during this period were peopled by multitudes 

 of fishes of moderate size, living chiefly on the crabs, 

 lobsters, and shell-fish, or on the encrinital animals ; 



i 5 



