hence, the eye will be no less rudimental, making no advance whatever in its optical structure and power.

This assertion may be confidently made, because it is sustained by the accumulated testimony of the past. Were the theory to which we have alluded well-founded, the fossil hunter would discover in the Silurian and Cambrian, the primary fossiliferous groups, the simplest forms of animal life; and no less certainly a gradual advance in structure as he ascended towards our surfacesoil.

But, so far from this, he discovers complicated forms even in the earliest fossiliferous strata. In the Silurian, for example, are trilobites in great numbers, of the various species. Each of these creatures, now extinct, should, according to the theory referred to, have had a rudimental eye, the power of which should have gradually, but certainly, increased with the lapse of ages. But, instead of this, the eye of the trilobite, hundreds, thousands of years ago, was as perfect as that of any one of the crustaceans to which it is allied just taken from the waters. It was, therefore, by no series of advances that its completeness was attained; as Buckland says: "It was created, at the very first, in the fulness of perfect adaptation to its use."

Agassiz has remarked: "It is now a truth, which I consider as proved, that the ensemble of organised beings was renewed, not only in the interval

of each of the great geological divisions which we have agreed to call formations, but also at the time of the deposition of each particular member of all the formations. For example: I think I can prove that in the oolitic formation, at least within the limits of the Swiss Jura, the organic contents of the lias, those of the oolitic group properly so called, those of the Oxfordian group, and those of the Portlandian group, as they occur in Switzerland, are as different from each other as the fossils of the lias from those of the Keuper, or those of the Portlandian beds from those of the Neocomian formation.

"I also believe very little in the genetic descent of living species from those of the various tertiary layers which have been regarded as identical, but which, in my opinion, are specifically distinct. I cannot admit the idea of the transformation of species from one formation to another. In advancing these

general notions, I do not wish to offer them as inductions drawn from the study of any particular class of animals (of the fishes for instance), and applied to other classes, but as the results of direct observation of very considerable collections of fossils of different formations, and belonging to different classes of animals, in the investigation of which I have been specially engaged for many years, in order to assure myself whether the conclusions which I had drawn from the

L

162

SILVER-SHELL: ITS MATURITY.

tribe of fishes were applicable to this class only, or whether the same relation existed in the other remains of the animal kingdom."

Dugald Stewart, alluding to the uniformity of animal instinct, justly observes that it "presupposes a corresponding regularity in the physical laws of the universe; insomuch that if the established order of the material world were to be essentially disturbed (the instincts of the brutes remaining the same), all their various tribes would inevitably perish." The conclusion of the acute philosopher is sustained by the naturalist; and the instincts of Silver-shell demanded for its life and vigour precisely similar circumstances and conditions to those of the most ancient of its race. A difference in these would have even forbidden its existence.

"Any naturalist will admit," says Sir C. Lyell, "that the same species have always retained the same instincts, and, therefore, that all the strata wherein any of their remains occur, must have been formed when the phenomena of inanimate matter were the same as they are in the actual condition of the earth. The same conclusion must also be extended to the extinct animals with which the remains of these living species are associated; and by these means we are enabled to establish the permanence of the existing physical laws, throughout the whole period when the tertiary deposits were formed."

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CHAPTER XI.

CLOSE OF SILVER-SHELL'S CAREER.

SILVER-SHELL GOES TO BILLINGSGATE-SALE OF OYSTERS IN DIF

FERENT PLACES "PRAY, REMEMBER THE GROTTO❞—OYSTER

BARRELS.

THE dredger, bearing away the oysters of his successive hauls in basket measures, placed them in a pit near to his home, provided specially for the purpose until he had an opportunity of disposing of his produce. This occurred on the next day, and Silver-shell formed part of the freight of one of the fleet of oyster-vessels which, at the close of the month of September-inferior oysters always preceding the "natives"-wafted it to Billingsgate.

That collection of sheds and stalls-not unlike a dilapidated railway station-was then a scene of confusion and abuse which gave to Billingsgate a strange and discreditable notoriety. Buyers and sellers kept up during the early hours of the morning a tumult utterly unendurable by sensitive ears, and absolutely shocking to those who had any regard for morality and piety. Gross frauds were at the same time unblushingly per

petrated. If, however, the sellers cheated the buyers, and the buyers in their turn cheated the sellers, yet wrong never came right.”

66

But the times have changed, and are still, we believe, improving. Oyster-fleets are not what they once were; and the railways brings millions of "natives" annually to the great metropolis. No offence either in word or deed is now the penalty of an early walk within the precincts of Billingsgate. There may be seen in full authority the representative of the Lord Mayor-a name of terror to all delinquents, among whom are all who would become purveyors of stale, and therefore unwholesome, fish. Next in rank appear the wholesale dealers— a class of men as respectable in character and conduct as any that may be seen in the first-rate shops of the metropolis, courteously expatiating on the fins of a turbot, the firmness of a salmon, or the primeness of his "natives;" or, leaving this task to one of his shopmen, occupying himself with his day-book, or writing checks, and giving change at his desk. "The third estate," once strangely called "Bummarees," but now recognised as "retailers," are the parties who come between the class just described and those of still inferior grade. Purchasing the various sorts of fish, they arrange them in small parcels to suit the convenience of suburban dealers in fish, whose open windows show to the passerby what they have for sale, while their oyster-tubs