great additional impetus given by the rapid advance of the animal, would combine to produce a stroke from the pointed head which few living animals could resist. The fishes, including perhaps even the sharks, the larger cuttle-fish, and innumerable inhabitants of the sea, would fall an easy prey to this monster.

"But now let us see what goes on in the deeper abysses of the ocean, where a free space is given for the operations of that fiercely carnivorous marine reptile, the ichthyosaurus. Prowling about at a great depth, where the reptilian structure of its lungs, and the bony apparatus of the ribs would allow it to remain for a long time without coming to the air to breathe, we may fancy we see this strange animal, with its enormous eyes directed upwards, and glaring like globes of fire. Its length is some thirty or forty feet, its head being six or eight feet long; and it has paddles and a tail like a shark; its whole energies are fixed on what is going on above, where the plesiosaurus or some giant shark is seen devouring its prey. Suddenly striking with its short but compact paddles, and obtaining a powerful impetus by flapping its large tail, the monster darts through the water

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at a rate which the eye can scarcely follow towards the surface. The vast jaws, lined with formidable rows of teeth, soon open wide to their full extent; the object of attack is approachedis overtaken. With a motion quicker than thought the jaws are snapped together, and the work is done. The monster, becoming gorged, floats languidly near the surface, with a portion of the top of its head and its nostrils visible, like an island covered with black mud, above the water.

"But a description of such scenes of carnage, enacted at former periods of the earth's history, may perhaps induce some of my readers to question the wisdom that permitted them, and conclude rashly that they are opposed to the ideas which we are encouraged to form of the goodness of that Being, the necessary action of whose laws, enforced on all living beings, gives rise to them. By no means, however, is this the case. These very results are perfectly compatible with the greatest wisdom and goodness and even according to our limited views of the course of nature, they may be shown not to involve any needless suffering. To us men, constituted as we are, and looking upon death

as a punishment which must be endured, premature and violent destruction seems to involve unnecessary pain. But such is not the law of nature as it relates to animal life in general. The very exuberance and abundance of life is. at once obtained and kept within proper bounds by this rapacity of some great tribes. A lingering death-a natural decay of those powers which alone enable the animal to enjoy life— would, on the contrary, be a most miserable arrangement for beings not endowed with reason, and not assisting each other. It would be cruelty, because it would involve great and hopeless suffering. Death by violence is to all unreasoning animals the easiest death, for it is the most instantaneous; and therefore, no doubt, it has been ordained that throughout large classes there should be an almost indefinite rate of increase, accompanied by destruction rapid and complete in a corresponding degree, since in this way the greatest amount of happiness is ensured, and the pain of misery and slow decay of the vital powers prevented. All nature, both living and extinct, abounds with facts proving the truth of this view; and it would be as unreasonable to doubt the wisdom and goodness

of this arrangement, as it would be to call in question the mutual adaptation of each part in the great scheme of creation. No one who examines nature for himself, however superficially, can doubt the latter; and no one certainly, who duly considers the laws ordained for the general government of the world, can believe it possible for these laws to have acted without a system of compensation, according to which the vital energies of one tribe serve to prepare food for the development of higher powers in another."*

* Ansted's Ancient World, pp. 164-168.