330 FIELD, FOREST AND FARM 



quadrupeds, suckling their young, and last of all 

 man, placed above all the rest by his incomparable 

 endowments. 



"Let us glance rapidly at some examples of the 

 ancient denizens of land and sea. Look at this pic- 

 ture. The back of the creature here represented re- 

 sembles a little, in its form and in its regular rows 

 of scales, the tail of a fish; but the front — to what 

 can that be likened? What is the meaning of those 

 large bony plaques arranged side by side like the 

 squares in a tessellated pavement? The animal is 

 armed with coat of mail, perhaps to protect itself 

 from the bite of an enemy. 



"What is the purpose of those wing-like appen- 

 dages that strike the flanks ? Of what use are those 

 two short horns at the base of the forehead? What 

 sort of a creature can it be that thus singularly com- 

 bines in its structure the tail of a fish, the shell of a 

 tortoise, the featherless wings of a bird, and the 

 nascent horns of a ram? You will never guess the 

 answer, so different is the creature from any that 

 are known to you. It is a fish, but suoh a fish as 

 no frying-pan of ours has ever had acquaintance 

 with, nor does the ocean now hold any more 

 like it. 



"It goes back to the earliest ages of the world, and 

 is called the pterichthys. Do not exclaim at this 

 name, as strange to our ears as the creature itself to 

 our eyes. Translated into our tongue, it means a 

 winged fish. But did this fish of former ages really 

 fly? Assuredly not. It was too heavy, too massive, 



