designation for all the animals below the vertebrate type. The most highly developed of the recent cephalopods exhibit a true internal skeleton, in the form of a strong oblong bone, on which the body is hung. In this respect they occupy a sort of intermediate place between the lower molluscs on the one hand, and the lower fishes on the other. Theirs is not a vertebral column, but rather, as it were, a foreshadowing of it; not, however, as a link in some process of self-development from mollusc to fish, for these higher cephalopods do not appear to have been created until fishes and reptiles had lived for ages. The vertebrate type has been traced well-nigh as far back into the past as we have yet been able to penetrate. Once introduced, it has never ceased to exist, but in the successive geological ages has been ever receiving newer and higher modifications, reaching its perfection at length in man. The vertebrate form of structure fulfils the highest adaptations of which terrestrial beings seem capable. We can hardly conceive of corporeal existence reaching a more elevated stage of development, save in thereby becoming less material, and receiving an impartation of some higher element. The vertebrate animals display not merely the most complexly organized structures, but manifest in their habits the workings of the higher instincts and affections. Among the invertebrate tribes the propagation of the species is, in the vast majority of cases, a mere mechanical function, like that of feeding or respiration, and the eggs once deposited, the parent has no further care of her young. But among the vertebrated animals, on the other hand, the perpetuation of the race forms the central pillar round which the natural affections are entwined. It parcels out every species into pairs, in each of which the mates are bound together by the strongest ties of attachment. It gives birth, too, to that noble instinct which leads the mother to expose her own life rather than suffer harm to come to her offspring. It produces, at least in man, that reciprocal attachment of offspring to parent, from which springs no small part of all that is holiest and best in this world. These attributes, to a greater or less extent, belong to all the vertebrate animals, from the fish up to man. In looking over the relics of animal life in the earlier geological formations, we are apt, as we gaze on the massive jaws and teeth, the strong bony armour, and the sharp, barbed spines, to think only of a time of war and carnage, when the larger forms preyed upon the smaller, or ruthlessly sought to exterminate each other. Yet should we not remember, that with all these weapons and instincts of self-preservation there were linked attributes of a nobler kind; that the earliest vertebrate remains point to the introduction--though perhaps in but a rudimentary form--of self-sacrificing love into our planet? The march of creation from