Now the delicately thin calcareous plates have all been formed in succession, "the first formed being at the outer part and posterior termination of the shell, and the succeeding new layers extending always more forwards than the edges of the old."[80] They exhibit then many hundreds of distinct deposits, each the result of a separate process, each the work of a definite period of time. The "cuttle-bone" is an autographic record, indubitably genuine, of the Cuttlefish's history. Yes, it is certainly genuine; it is as certainly autographic: but it is _not true_. That Cuttle has been this day created. IX. PARALLELS AND PRECEDENTS. (_Vertebrate Animals._) "The organisation of the body at each epoch may be truly said to be the _resultant_ of all the material changes which it has undergone during the preceding periods."--_Dr. Carpenter; Human Physiology_, p. 903. The _Invertebrata_ then agree in one story, and that story is the same as what the plants had told us before. Let us try if the Vertebrate creatures bear them out. From this promontory we can look far down into the clear profundity of the still and smooth sea. What is that large object that plays hither and thither yonder, now shooting ahead, now resting on his oars, now turning on his course, now cutting the surface, now descending to the depths? It is a full-grown Sword-fish, some ten feet long. We are sufficiently near him to discern that he has one short but high dorsal fin, near the head, and a minute one close to the caudal, the whole intermediate region being smooth. But this is a mark of adult age; for in early life this same species is furnished with one long and high dorsal, which is continuous from the occiput to the vicinity of the tail-fin. The remotely divided dorsal here tells of many years of life; but tells deceitfully, for the Sword-fish is but just created. Ha! the Sword-fish has darted away, like lightning, after a finny victim. See with what doublings and windings he pursues it, and how the terrified prey uses all its powers to escape from its gigantic enemy! Now they near the shore; and now the frightened quarry has leaped out of the sea upon yonder flat shelf of rock, where it lies gasping and floundering, delivered indeed from its pursuer, but only to die by being drowned _in the air_. We will descend from the cliffs, and look at it. It is a Gilt-head (_Chrysophrys aurata_). Life is extinct now; but the brilliant colours and fine metallic reflections are scarcely dimmed--the silvery belly--the azure fins--the sides that gleam like polished steel, inlaid with bands of burnished gold!