182 MAN AND APES. 



occurrence of sudden and direct transforma- 

 tions does not repose on Dr. Bastian's observa- 

 tions alone. Similar phenomena have been 

 observed by M. Pineau, M. Jules Haime, M. 

 T. C. Hildyard, Mr. Metcalf Johnson, Dr. 

 Gros, and M. Nicolet.* 



It would be difficult and eminently un- 

 scientific summarily to reject such an accumu- 

 lation of evidence. To do so simply on an 

 account of a priori prejudice, reposing upon 

 nothing better than negative testimony, would 



be in the highest degree unphilosophical. 



Moreover, we have of late years become 

 acquainted with the remarkable fact of the 

 occassional sudden transformation of a certain 

 large Mexican Eft with external gills — the 

 Axolotl — into an animal not only of a dif- 

 ferent species but of a different genus. Here 

 the whole structure, the arrangement even of 

 certain bones and distribution of the teeth in 

 the jaws , becomes transformed without the 



* For an account of their observations and references 

 to their original statements 3 see ' Bastian,' Op. cit. vol. ii. 

 pp. 493-527. 



