300 CREATION BY LAW. 



he has discovered the group of the Simocyonidse inter- 

 mediate between bears and wolves ; the genus Hyasnictis 

 which connects the hyaenas with the civets ; the Ancylo- 

 therium, which is allied both to the extinct mastodon 

 and to the living pangolin or scaly ant-eater ; and 

 the Helladotherium, which connects the now isolated 

 giraffe with the deer and antelopes. 



Between reptiles and fishes an intermediate type has 

 been found in the Archegosaurus of the Coal forma- 

 tion; while the Labyrinthodon of the Trias combined 

 characters of the Batrachia with those of crocodiles, 

 lizards, and ganoid fishes. Even birds, the most appa- 

 rently isolated of all living forms, and the most rarely 

 preserved in a fossil state, have been shown to possess 

 undoubted affinities with reptiles ; and in the Oolitic 

 Archseopteryx, with its lengthened tail, feathered on 

 each side, we have one of the connecting links from 

 the side of birds ; while Professor Huxley has recently 

 shown that the entire order of Dinosaurians have re- 

 markable affinities to birds, and that one of them, the 

 Compsognathus, makes a nearer approach to bird orga- 

 nisation than does Archseopteryx to that of reptiles. 



Analogous facts to these occur in other classes of 

 animals, as an example of which we have the authority 

 of a distinguished paleontologist, M. Barande, quoted 

 by Mr. Darwin, for the statement, that although the 

 Paleozoic Invertebrata can certainly be classed under 

 existing groups, yet at this ancient period the groups 

 were not so distinctly separated from each other as 

 they are now ; while Mr. Scudder tells us, that some of 



