86 ANGLING. 



by the totality of their conformation, to live, move, 

 and have their being in the waters. The liquid 

 element forms their prope p^ace in the creation : 

 there they had their origin there they must re- 

 main till the final consummation of all things ; and 

 it is either through slight and superficial approxi- 

 mations, or by vain metaphysical speculation, that 

 any modern writer could regard them as proceeding 

 from an exalted or more perfect development of 

 the molluscous tribes. Equally unfounded is, of 

 course, that other opinion, which in the spirit of 

 the same philosophy looks upon fishes as forming 

 an elementary stage, or foetal condition of the other 

 vertebrated classes. It is true that the mollusca, in 

 common with fishes, respire by means of branchiae ; 

 they equally possess a nervous and circulating sys- 

 tem, an intestinal canal, and a liver; " and no 

 one," says Cuvier, with a justifiable pride, " knows 

 these things better than I, who first made known, 

 with any degree of completeness, the anatomy and 

 zoological relations of the molluscous tribes."* 

 As animal life, continues that great observer, has 

 received but a limited number of organs, it neces- 

 sarily happens that some of these organs are com- 

 mon to several classes. But where, in other re- 

 spects, is the resemblance ? Even such organs as 

 are common alike to mollusca, and fishes can be 

 brought into no relation with those connections 

 which the latter exhibit with the other vertebrated 

 classes, nor is it possible to shew the passage by 



* HIST. NAT. DBS POISSONS, i. 544. 



