CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



long ago led to the belief that birds and reptiles have more 

 in common than any other two classes of vertebrates. A 

 study of comparative anatomy alone shows that birds are, 

 as has been said, little more than "glorified reptiles," differ- 

 ing from other reptiles mainly in the possession of feathers 

 and wings. Blood precipitation tests support this conclu- 

 sion; the blood chemistry of the two classes indicates that 

 they are closely related. Embryology reveals the fact that 

 birds, long before they are hatched, have the beginnings of 

 typically reptilian teeth, which never reach maturity. The 

 eggs, embryonic membranes, and indeed the whole course of 

 the embryonic history of birds, is strikingly reptilian. In fact, 

 it is only in later stages of embryonic development that the 

 true avian characters begin to appear. The most character- 

 istically avian feature of a bird consists of its feathers; but 

 even these show by their development that they are no more 

 than finely subdivided reptilian scales. 



If, then, birds are specialized descendants of reptiles, it is 

 obvious that there must have been transitional stages leading 

 from reptiles to birds; and it is just here that palaeontology 

 furnishes the evidence that settles the question. In a deposit 

 of Bavarian shale there have been found two nearly com- 

 plete and well-preserved fossil specimens of a kind of animal 

 that is hard to classify as either reptile or bird, for it obvi- 

 ously possesses some of the features of both. This extinct 

 animal, which is known as Archaeopteryx, is an animal half- 

 way between a reptile and a bird. It had true feathers and 

 it had fore limbs that are half wings and half fore legs, each 

 having three long, prehensile fingers. It had a long, slender 

 lizard-like tail, on which there was a lateral fringe of large 

 feathers. The head was essentially reptilian, having no 

 horny beak but a full set of reptilian teeth. What better evi- 

 dence could one wish that the birds have been derived from 



[368] 



