THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIRD 

 By David Meredith Seares Watson 



Jodrell Professor of Zoology, London University 



According to the story of evolution the various kinds of 

 animals that we see to-day are not the descendants of like 

 animals that were suddenly created in the forms they now 

 have; some of them, at least, are the descendants of animals 

 of far different structure and habits. We can observe that no 

 animal is precisely like either of its parents in all respects, 

 but in order to demonstrate certainly the larger changes cov- 

 ered by the theory of evolution we should have to watch 

 carefully the natural breeding of some particular kind of 

 animal for a long time — for thousands or even millions of 

 years. We can get no such evidence as that, so we must turn 

 to evidence of other kinds. 



The alternative theory to that of evolution — the theory of 

 special creation — assumes that each kind of animal was cre- 

 ated in the form in which we now see it. If every kind of 

 animal had this mode of origin we should expect to find that 

 each one is a perfect machine, with all its parts arranged in 

 the best possible way — that is, in the simplest and most 

 effective way to perform their co5perative functions. But 

 we find that all animals, regarded as pieces of machinery, are 

 imperfect; each represents an attempt, more or less success- 

 ful, to adapt a pre-existent structure to some new use. If 

 the doctrine of evolution is true we should therefore be able 

 to show that many of the present useless or anomalous struc- 



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