54 MAMMALIAN DKSL'ENT. [Lect. II. 



menu. Tlu'y reniiiul one of tlie siukleii and mysterious moral 

 perfection of the antediluvian prophet Enoch, of Avhom it is said, 

 that — " He being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time." 

 There is, however, another way in which the mysterious morpho- 

 logical energy works, so as to force, as in a hothouse, the growth 

 of the young of certain types. This is the case in the highest 

 sorts of birds — the "Altrices," or high-builders — that have tender 

 nestlings. These young, sweltering in their soft nest, and almost 

 smothered by their feathered mother, whose Ijlood is nearl}' at fever 

 heat, grow and develop at ten times the rate of the young of those birds 

 that make poor nests on the ground ; for those chicks, hatched strong 

 and lusty, grow sloAvly to perfection. Yet the temperature of the 

 blood itself is apparently ecpial in both cases, and in both cases 

 afi'ects the femjyer of the mother-ljircL At that time the true maternal 

 courage rages ; at that time " a AVren Avill peck an Estridge ;" and 

 a Hen, the gentlest of mothers when her brood is grown, is like 

 one possessed Avhilst they are young. 



So we see that Xature fulfils herself in many ways ; her works have 

 not gone on from age to age in tame and cold luiiformity, bi;t in the 

 plenitude of her morphological energy she has at sundry times, and 

 in divers manners, burst out into new developments — delivering 

 herself in lier mighty energy of myriads of new and wondrous births. 

 Let lis imagine ourselves living in the time before the beginning of 

 the reign of the Prototheria, and before the first feathered creature 

 grew, Avhen there were neither birds nor beasts, and to us it seems 

 to be unenlivenetl gloom ; we have in idea depopiilated the planet of 

 almost all the living forms that make it laugh and sing. The vision 

 is like that of the prophet who — weeping over the desolations of that 

 land which once flowed with milk and honey — says, "I beheld, and, 

 lo, there was no man, and all the birds in the heavens were fled." 

 K'ow, if for the sake of Biology we should be glad to repeople the 

 earth with the parents of the Prototheria, for the sake of Life we 

 should indeed be sorry to peel away the newer JNIammalian faunas 

 until we got to that old core. 



To sum up these Prototherian matters, we may now look at some 

 of the most remarkable characters in the Dnclibill and Echidna that 

 are manifestly reptilian, or quasi-rejdilian . — 



1. Jacobson's Organs are about eipial in their development to 



