346 



M. Agassiz on Fishes. 



If we regard the whole organized beings which have lived si- 

 multaneously with the Heteroceric Lepidoidians, or those with un- 

 sym metric tails, we shall remark that they wjere for the most 

 part fixed at the bottom of the waters, or at least that they crawl- 

 ed about there, without being able to elevate themselves freely 

 and at their wills towards the surface, and move about at large. 

 With the exception of some reptiles, the appearance of which on 

 the earth was much posterior to that of fishes, all these animals 

 were aquatic, and the soil bore only those plants which are analo- 

 gous to those of great archipelagoes or of low plains. Fish, there- 

 fore, were the first of the animals to which the power was given 

 of spontaneously gliding through space in all directions, in water ; 

 whilst the movements of the Crustacea were only irregular and im- 

 perfect. Among the Mollusca, the Cephalopodes, which have the 

 most power of motion, ascended to the surface of the waters, and re- 

 mained, the sport of the winds in their aquatic ascensions ; the Gas- 

 teropodes were still more bound to the soil, and the Acephales and 

 Brachiopodes were frequently fixed to it. All the Polypi and Cri- 

 noidians of that period appear to have been attached by their base to 

 different solid bodies. At the same time, even the fishes, with their 

 unsymmetrical tails, could not execute the accurate movements of 

 the symmetrical fishes of the following epoch, and their progressive 

 movements therefore would be still irregular. The whole of these ani- 

 mals respiring by branchiae, could as yet utter no cry, and lived in 

 the most absolute silence. A long period assuredly elapsed ere the 

 surface of the earth was replenished with birds and beasts, and ere 

 man could reflect upon the events which have produced these changes 

 in organic life. We can scarcely conceive that, surrounded with such 

 facts as these, it would be possible to doubt that there was a regular 

 order of succession, and a constant progression in the work of creation. 



List of Plan ts new to the British Flora, or rare in Scotland, ob- 

 served during' the last Twelve Months, in various Excur- 

 sions from Edinburgh. By Dr Graham. 



Certainly there has not been in Edinburgh at any period 

 a greater, I believe there has never been at any one time so 

 great, a number of arduous cultivators of botany as at pre- 

 sent. The result of their labours in the field, greatly assisted 

 by my friends Dr Dewar at Dunfermline, and the Rev. A. Ro- 

 bertson junior at Inverkeithirg, enables me to communicate the 

 following list, which, I persuade myself, will be received with 

 interest by the botanical readers of this Journal. The whole 

 have been collected within, or scarcely exceeding, a day's walk 

 from Edinburgh, with the exception of those found by Mr Gil- 

 bert Macnab near Montrose, and those which were found du- 

 ring the annual excursion which I make with my pupils and 



