92 
NATURE OF THE TRILOBITE. 
Every one familiar with the history of the Trilo- 
bites, is aware that a good deal of controversy has 
existed among naturalists, respecting the precise 
link in the grand chain of organized beings, these sin- 
gular fossil animals, should occupy. Professor Brong- 
niart, Dr. Dekay, Audotin, and several other acute 
observers, have placed them in the vicinity of the Li- 
muli, and other Entomostraca with numerous feet; 
while P. A. Latreille and others, presuming that these 
animals were destitute of locomotive organs, as no 
vestige of them has ever been discovered, fix their 
natural position in the neighbourhood of the Chi- 
tones; or rather that they constituted the original 
‘stock of the Articulata, being connected on the one 
hand with these latter Mollusca, and on the other 
with those first. mentioned, and even with the Glome- 
ris.* It was our original intention to have closed 
this Monograph with a short history of these theories 
<page ae 
—and of the notion advanced by Latreille and others, © 
that the Trilobites have been annihilated by some 
ancient revolution of our planet. All these matters, | 
we think, are now put to rest by the late discovery 
of some living Trilobites in the southern seas, near 
the Falkland Islands. In the cabinet of the Albany 
Institute, we have examined some of these recent 
—— have very nearly the size and general 
* See Cuvier’ Animal Kingdom, vol. iii. pp. 135—6. 
