The
animal which dwells in it has about the same relationship to a cockle
as a dog has to a bird. It is a Brachiopod; a family with which the
ancient seas once swarmed, but which is rare now, all over the world,
having been supplanted and driven out of the seas by newer and
stronger forms of shelled animals. The nearest spot at which you are
likely to dredge a live Brachiopod will be in the deep water of Loch
Fyne, in Argyleshire, where two species still linger, fastened,
strangely enough, to the smooth pebbles of a submerged glacier,
formed in the open air during the age of ice, but sunk now to a depth
of eighty fathoms. The first time I saw those shells come up in the
dredge out of the dark and motionless abyss, I could sympathise with
the feelings of mingled delight and awe which, so my companion told
me, the great Professor Owen had in the same spot first beheld the
same lingering remnants of a primaeval world.
The other might be (but I cannot promise you even a chance of
dredging that, unless you were off the coast of Portugal, or the
windward side of some of the West India Islands) a live Crinoid; an
exquisite starfish, with long and branching arms, but rooted in the
mud by a long stalk, and that stalk throwing out barren side
branches; the whole a living plant of stone.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142