The Trilobite was the most arresting figure in the Cambrian sea, and its
fortunes deserve a paragraph. It reaches its climax in the Ordovician
sea, and then begins to decline, as more powerful animals come upon the
scene. At first (apparently) an eyeless organism, it gradually develops
compound eyes, and in some species the experts have calculated that
there were 15,000 facets to each eye. As time goes on, also, the eye
stands out from the head on a kind of stalk, giving a wider range of
vision. Some of the more sluggish species seem to have been able to
roll themselves up, like hedgehogs, in their shells, when an enemy
approached. But another branch of the same group (Crustacea) has
meantime advanced, and it gradually supersedes the dwindling Trilobites.
Toward the close of the Silurian great scorpion-like Crustaceans
(Pterygotus, Eurypterus, etc.) make their appearance. Their development
is obscure, but it must be remembered that the rocks only give the
record of shore-life, and only a part of that is as yet opened by
geology. Some experts think that they were developed in inland waters.
Reaching sometimes a length of five or six feet, with two large compound
eyes and some smaller eye-spots (ocelli), they must have been the giants
of the Silurian ocean until the great sharks and other fishes appeared.
The quaint stalked Echinoderm which also we noticed in the Cambrian
shallows has now evolved into a more handsome creature, the sea-lily.
The cup-shaped body is now composed of a large number of limy plates,
clothed with flesh; the arms are long, tapering, symmetrical, and richly
fringed; the stalk advances higher and higher, until the flower-like
animal sometimes waves its feathery arms from the top of a flexible
pedestal composed of millions of tiny chalk disks. Small forests of
these sea-lilies adorn the floor of the Silurian ocean, and their broken
and dead frames form whole beds of limestone. The primitive Cystids
dwindle and die out in the presence of such powerful competitors. Of
250 species only a dozen linger in the Silurian strata, though a new and
more advanced type--the Blastoid--holds the field for a time. It is the
age of the Crinoids or sea-lilies. The starfish, which has abandoned the
stalk, does not seem to prosper as yet, and the brittle-star appears.
Their age will come later. No sea-urchins or sea-cucumbers (which would
hardly be preserved) are found as yet. It is precisely the order of
appearance which our theory of their evolution demands.
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