II.
These have the three chief parts of the body developed.
3. The facial ridge. Cambrian, adult with glabella and facial ridges, short or long, emanating from the top of the glabella, thorax and pygidium. Several American Conocoryphæ. Corresponding larval stage, Sao, stage 3, Barr. pl. 7 figs 4 d-9.
4. Suture. A suture dividing the fixed cheeks in two pair viz. two fixed cheeks and two free cheeks. Fully developed facial ridge. Oldest known adult forms are Ellipsocephalus, Arionellus, already in the Lowest Cambrian, the Olenellus beds, what presupposes a long, antecedent lineage far back in the precambrian times. Corresponding larval stage in Sao, Barr. pl. 7 figs 10-13. The plurality of Cambrian trilobites belong here. An intermediate stage leading to the next is seen in such forms in which the ridge posteriorly is widened into the »eye lobe», which rests in the scallop of the free cheek. So it is in Liostracus and many others besides. Solenopleura possibly oculate.
III.
5. Globular eyes. Cambrian, in the youngest zone, the Olenus schists. The oldest at present known oculate trilobite Eurycare is found in the second division of these schists.
In the lowest Lower Silurian division, the Ceratopyge limestone, Euloma and Ceratopyge occur as the last survivors of the blind, partially ridge bearing genera. The Trinucleidæ and Ampyx belong to another group of trilobites.
Even among other exclusively Lower Silurian genera, in which the plurality of the species is oculate, there are species entirely blind. So with Illænus, in which genus Dr Holm has not found any eye in Ill. Angelini, I. leptopleura and Ill. cæcus. The free cheek in these three species is much narrow, as the facial suture lies near the margin of the head.
The eyes of the Trilobites.
If, as is probable, to judge by the conformity of their cornea with that of recent crustacea, the trilobites like these were provided with crystalline cones beneath the corneal lenses or facets, only the latter have been preserved in a fossil state. Although the crystalline cones in consequence of their solid consistence might have been petrified as well as the cornea, they must, imbedded as these tiny cones lie, entirely wrapped up in delicate tissues, fall away and be lost, when the dissolution of the dead body had set in. Consequently the curious appendages on the inferior side of the lenses in Dalmanites vulgaris ([Pl. III f. 50]) or Phacops quadrilineata ([Pl. V fig. 38]) can noways be considered as belonging to the original structure of the eye, apart from their great dissimilarity with anything appertaining to the eyes of the Arthropoda. The cornea on the contrary cohered with the integument of the body, and it has been well preserved in a great number of trilobites.