676 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dealt with, in tliis paper, have a most important bearing on the 

 argument on which he was then laying most stress, viz., that man 

 is descended from an arboreal quadrumanous ancestor. The fact 

 that such important and easily ascertained characteristics as those 

 alluded to should have been passed over by one so keenly observ- 

 ant of all phenomena bearing upon his theory might suggest that 

 the great man was scarcely so supreme in his own nursery as he 

 was in the wider field of research, and that his opportunities for 

 investigation were to some extent limited by the arbitrary and 

 inflexible rules of this household department. In fact, the sup- 

 posed interest of the Darwinian race, when conflicting with the 

 interests of the Darwinian theory, appear to have become para- 

 mount somewhat to the detriment of the latter. 



It has been well said that the develoi^ment of the individual 

 from the single germ-cell to maturity is an epitome of the 

 infinitely longer development of the race from the simplest form 

 of life to its present condition. No branch of science, not even 

 paleontology, has thrown so much light on the evolution theory 

 as the study of the structure and progress of the embryo up to the 

 time of birth. There seems, however, no reason why embryology 

 should stop here. An animal until independent of parental care, 

 and even beyond that point, until the bodily structures and func- 

 tions are those of an adult, is still, strictly speaking, an embryo ; 

 and we may learn much of its racial history by observing the 

 peculiarities of its anatomy and habits of life. 



For instance, among our domestic animals, horses and cattle 

 live very much in the same manner, and thrive equally well graz- 

 ing in open pastures. Yet a brief examination of the young of 

 each shows that the habits and habitats of their resj^ective wild 

 ancestors were widely different. A foal from birth is conspicuous 

 for the development of its legs, and when a few days old can gal- 

 lop almost as fast as ever it will in its life. It makes no attempt 

 at concealment beyond retiring behind its dam, and it carries its 

 head high, evidently on the alert to see danger and flee from it. 

 A young calf, on the contrary, is not much longer in the \eg in 

 proportion than its parents (I exclude, of course, the breeds artifi- 

 cially produced within quite recent times), and has but an indif- 

 ferent turn of speed, and it is slow and stupid in noticing its sur- 

 roundings. It has, however, one powerful and efficient instinct 

 of self-preservation ; for if, as is often the case in a bushy pasture, 

 the mother leaves it under cover while she goes to graze, it will 

 lie as still as death, and allow itself to be trodden on rather than 

 betray its hiding-place. Hence we see that the ancestors of our 

 domestic horses inhabited open plains where there was little or 

 no cover, and that they escaped by quickly observing the approach 

 of a foe and by speed. Wild cattle, on the contrary, as is still 



