But the Devonian "age of fishes" (Devonian including old red sandstone)
was far too important a period to be thus got rid of; and it is
difficult to understand _why_ the narrative should exclude all the
extensive and beautiful (though often little specialized) orders of
marine life--all the Corals, the Mollusca and Articulata, which had long
abounded--especially some of the Crustaceans, not an unimportant group
of which (_Trilobite_[1]) had also culminated and almost passed away
before the Devonian; to say nothing of the fact that _land_ "creeping
things" (scorpions among _crustacea_, and apparently winged insects) had
occurred.
[Footnote 1: It is remarkable that the Trilobites rapidly culminated, so
that we have the largest and most perfect forms, such as _Paradoxus_,
with the lowest (_Agnostus_) in the same beds in Wales (Etheridge's
"Phillips' Manual," Part II. p. 32).]
It is a special difficulty also, that if _insects_ are included among
the "creeping things" of the _earth_ then various families of the
"land-creation" (sixth day) became represented _before_ the great
reptiles of the "water-creation" (fifth day).
The fact is that a glance at the subjoined Tables (which are only
generally and approximately correct) will suffice to show how the main
features of the progress of life-forms differ from what is required by
the older methods of reading Genesis.
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