196 Dr. T. Wright on some new species of Hemipedina. 



creature shall be formed widely diiFering from anything before 

 existing ; that in this, as in everything else in Nature, there shall 

 be gradation and harmony, — then these rudimentary organs are 

 necessary, and are an essential part of the system of Nature. 

 Ere the higher Vertebrata were formed, for instance, many steps 

 were require<l, and many organs had to undergo modifications 

 from the rudimental condition in which only they had as yet 

 existed. We still see remaining an antitypal sketch of a wing 

 adapted for flight in the scaly flapper of the penguin, and limbs 

 first concealed beneath the skin, and then weakly protruding 

 from it, were the necessary gradations before others should be 

 formed fully adapted for locomotion. Many more of these 

 modifications should we behold, and more complete series of 

 them, had we a view of all the forms which have ceased to live. 

 The great gaps that exist between fishes, reptiles, birds and 

 mammals would then, no doubt, be softened down by inter- 

 mediate groups, and the whole organic world would be seen to 

 be an unbroken and harmonious system. 



It has now been shown, though most briefly and imperfectly, 

 how the law that " Every species has come into existence coin- 

 cident both in time and space ivith a pre-existing closehj allied 

 species,^' connects together and renders intelligible a vast number 

 of independent and hitherto unexplained facts. The natural 

 system of arrangement of organic beings, their geographical 

 distribution, their geological sequence, the phsenomena of repre- 

 sentative and substituted groups in all their modifications, and 

 the most singular peculiarities of anatomical structure, are all 

 explained and illustrated by it, in perfect accordance with the 

 vast mass of facts which the researches of modern naturalists 

 have brought together, and, it is believed, not materially opposed 

 to any of them. It also claims a superiority over previous 

 hypotheses, on the ground that it not merely explains, but 

 necessitates what exists. Granted the law, and many of the 

 most important facts in Nature could not have been otherwise, 

 but are almost as necessary deductions from it, as are the elliptic 

 orbits of the planets from the law of gravitation. 



Sarawak, Borneo, Feb. 1855. 



XIX. — On some new Species of Hemipedina from the Oolites, 

 By Thomas Wright, M.B./F.R.S.E. 



Since the publication of our paper in the August Number of 

 the * Annals and Magazine of Natural History,^ on the new 

 genus Hemipedina and the Synopsis of the species included 



