REPTILES ABUNDANT. 81 



roaming in the valleys. He would encounter no tiger or 

 elephant in the jungle. None of the more useful mammalian 

 quadrupeds, as the dog, the horse, the bullock, or sheep, would 

 have presented themselves. And not only were no human 

 beings to be seen, but our supernatural visitant would know 

 that this scene must lie spread out in perfect capability for their 

 reception, during whole millenniums, before such beings were 

 to exist ; the stream flowing and glittering in the sun, but not 

 to cheer the eye of man ; the whole jocund earth spread out 

 in unenjoyed beauty, as yet unwitting of the glory and the 

 gloom which human impulses were to bring upon it. How 

 strange to reflect on the contemplations of the supposed 

 visitant ! What a vast void ! What a stretch of time before 

 there was to be even a commencement to its proper filling ! 

 And yet the certainty that in good time, in the ripeness of the 

 plans of the mighty Author, the higher animals were to come, 

 and among the last the Creature of Creatures who, in his 

 infinity of device, was to turn it all to his use the historical 

 being of the world ! 



It has been supposed by some geologists, that there was a 

 special adaptation of the earth at this time to its predominating 

 tenants, as if it presented only low muddy coasts and marshes 

 fit for the residence of reptiles. And it has been thought that 

 this state of the earth is what led to the existence of so many 

 reptiles. But all such speculations rest on insecure grounds. 

 When we consider that the Age of Reptiles, as it has been 

 called, is interposed between an age of fishes and an age of 

 mammals, reptiles being also intermediate to these in the 

 animal scale, we cannot but surmise that the fact depends on 

 some organic law, rather than upon one in physical geography. 

 An observation of some importance to this question is made 

 by Mr. Darwin in his Journal. Describing the Galapagos 

 islands in the Pacific Ocean, where turtles and lizards replace 

 the herbivorous mammalia, and are the predominating forms 

 of life, he says " The geologist, on hearing this, will pro- 

 bably refer back his mind to the secondary epochs, when 

 lizards, some herbivorous, some carnivorous, and of dimensions 

 comparable only with our existing whales, swarmed on the 

 land and in the sea. It is therefore worthy of his observation, 

 that this archipelago, instead of possessing a humid climate 

 and rank vegetation, cannot be considered otherwise than ex- 

 tremely arid, and, for an equatorial region, remarkably tem- 

 perate." 



G 



