I'.iO 



liCRMA, ITS PEOPLE AND PROnCCTlOXS. 



evidence of progressive change, no single case has yet been observed of one species 

 passing through a scries of inappreciable modilii'ations into another." Now what 

 this passage means, I know not, if it is not an assertion which is contradicted iu 

 the most absolute manner by the plainest deductions of zoology. The zoologist's 

 one difficulty is with those species which vary so by "inappreciable modifications" 

 that it is impossible to say where one species ends and another begins — and this 

 variability is the very mode whereby under favourable conditions one species docs 

 (so to say) pass into another. As for the geological phase of the question, it may 

 be met by quoting the ease of the living "Wild Duffalo {lluhalus Ami) and the 

 living Indian Elephant {Enelephas indiciis), which can hardly be descended from 

 any stock save the Siwalik Eubalus paluindicits and Enelephas hi/rudricus, and 

 although this may be stigmatized as " only a hypothesis," it is a hypothesis infinitely 

 less absurd than the only alternative one, namely, that these fonns so nearly rehited 

 to extinct Sivalik species are not really descended from them, but were independently 

 elaborated de novo. The idea is one we are familiar with in the writings of poets 

 and other holy and unholy men, and certainly lends itself to a good deal of pretty 

 writing, as, for example, those charming lines on the Creation by Vincent Bourne : 



" Ecce ! iterum terras pariunt et fusa per agros 

 Undique depascunt virides animantia campos. 

 Iteptilium innumerie gentcs, quas fertile verbum 

 Produxit, vitam accipiunt, initumijue moveudi. 

 Immancs surgimt tigres rabidique leones 

 Cornigerique boves distenta(jue lacte capella. 

 Ecce ! novis tremulum diverberat aera pennis 

 Alituum genus et multo super ^thera plausu 

 Fertur, et undantes implet concentibus auras." 



Now this, as poetry and a creation of the fancy, is beautiful, but as a scientific 

 utterance or physiological canon is simply "bosh." 



Usio 



a. Marginalis group. 

 MAKGiN.u,is, Lam. 



