SEA-SCORPIONS 
53 
famous work on fossil fishes ; and he says that he was much 
struck with the skill displayed by him in piecing together the 
fragments of the huge Pterygotus. “Agassiz glanced over the 
collection. One specimen especially caught his attention — an 
elegantly symmetrical one. His eye brightened as he contem- 
plated it. ‘ I will tell you,’ he said, turning to the company — ' I 
will tell you what these are — the remains of a huge lobster.’ He 
arranged the specimens in the group before him with as much 
ease as I have seen a young girl arranging the pieces of ivory 
in an Indian puzzle. There is a homage due to supereminent 
genius, which Nature spontaneously pays when there are no low 
feelings of jealousy or envy to interfere with her operations ; and 
the reader may well believe that it was willingly rendered on this 
occasion to the genius of Agassiz.” Agassiz himself, previous to 
this, had considered such fragments as he had seen to be the 
remains of fishes. As we have said before, this creature was not 
a true lobster ; but Agassiz, when he expressed the opinion 
just quoted, was not far off the mark, and did great service in 
showing it to be a crustacean. There were no lobsters at 
that early period of the world’s history, and this creature, with 
its long “jaw-feet” and powerful tail, was a near approach to a 
king-crab on the one hand and scorpion on the other. If living 
now, it would no doubt command a high price at Billingsgate ; 
but, then, it would be a dangerous thing to handle when alive, 
and might be more troublesome to catch than our crabs or 
lobsters. 
The front part of the body was entirely enveloped in a kind 
of shield, called a carapace, bearing near the centre minute eyes, 
which probably were useless, and at the corners two large com- 
pound eyes, made up of numerous little lenses, such as we see 
in the eye of a dragon-fly. This is clearly proved by certain 
