Articulate animals are a very ancient race, as well as a flourishing one, for the oldest rocks containing undoubted fossils--namely, certain slates found in Wales and the Lake District--tell us of a time when shallow seas swarmed with little articulate animals known as _trilobites_. They were in appearance something like wood-lice of the present day; and the record of the rocks tells us plainly that creatures built upon this plan have flourished ever since. We mention this because they are related to the king-crabs of the present day, and therefore to the huge old-fashioned sea-scorpions we are now considering.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--_Pterygotus anglicus._ (After Woodward.)
The best-known and largest of these creatures is represented in Fig. 1. It has received the name _Pterygotus_ (or wing-eared) from certain fanciful resemblances pointed out by the quarrymen. It was first discovered, along with others of its kind, by Hugh Miller, at Carmylie in Forfarshire, in a certain part of the Old Red Sandstone (see Table of Strata, Appendix I.) known as the Arbroath paving-stone. The quarrymen, in the course of their work, came upon and dug out large pieces of the fossilised remains of this creature. Its hard coat of jointed armour bore on its surface curious wavy markings that suggested to their minds the sculptured feathers on the wings of cherubs--of all subjects of the chisel the most common. Hence they christened these remains "Seraphim." They did not succeed in getting complete specimens that could be pieced together; and the part to which this fanciful name was given turned out to be part of the under side below the mouth. It was composed of several large plates, two of which are not unlike the wings of a cherub in shape. Hugh Miller says in his classic work, _The Old Red Sandstone_--"the form altogether, from its wing-like appearance, its feathery markings, and its angular points, will suggest to the reader the origin of the name given it by Forfarshire workmen."
A correct restoration, in proportion to the fragments found in the Lower Old Red Sandstone, would give a creature measuring nearly six feet in length, and more than a foot across. _Pterygotus anglicus_ may therefore be justly considered a monster crustacean.