i8 93 . THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 225 



agrees with him, and Dr. Brooks," from the development of Salpa, 

 coroborates both. Practically, his conclusion is that the Chordate 

 ancestor came straight from a simple pelagic form of which 

 Appendicularia is a near living kinsman. The relations between the 

 Chordates and other groups are to be looked for only among the 

 characters common to such simple pelagic forms, and all chimaeras, 

 like the Arachnid or Crustacean ancestry of the Chordates, are 

 relegated to the same oblivion as the more useful, if not more satis- 

 factory, Annelidan hypothesis. It must, however, be pointed out that 

 while Dr. Brooks received Willey's new work on Ascidians and 

 Amphioxus in time to criticise it sharply, he had apparently not 

 received, and so has not yet tried to consider, the bearings of 

 the newly-discovered nephridial organs of Amphioxus. 



