LscT. IV.] FOOD AND SAFETY. 117 



skull (occiput). 13ut none of the Edentata have this piece except the 

 ^Vard-vark, although the JNIarsupials agree with higher forms in having 

 this superadded plate. Kow, as far as I can see at present in my 

 dissections of the young of the Platypus and Echidna, the parietals, 

 as in Lizards and Snakes, fuse together very early, and do not keep 

 apart, either for a long time, or for the whole of life, as in nolile 

 mammals ; their hack-skull is very large, and turns over the hrain- 

 cavity; it is roof as Avell as wall. In the Edentata, generally, this early 

 reptilian fusion of the parietals docs not take place, liut they have a 

 liuge back-sknll, which helps the parietals, without an intercalary 

 interparietal to finish the skull, above. The Pangolins, whose arrested 

 covering of hair degenerates, so to speak, into a cpxa si-reptilian 

 condition, have, in some species, a hreast-bone with long, hinder, carti- 

 laginoiis horns, like StelUo among the Lizards. Also, on the right 

 side, in the abdomen of this misymmetrical creature, there are four 

 cartilaginous abdominal ribs, like those found in certain Lizards, 

 namely, Chamieleo, PoJi/chms, and the archaic Xew Zealand 

 Hatteria. 



More than this, in the mammals whose embryology I have studied, 

 I have never fonnd such evident marks of degradation of the primary 

 or cartilaginous skull as in tlie PangoHn ; the wonderfully specialised 

 and peculiar skulls of Serpents, Lizards, and the Tortoise tribe, are 

 the only other instances in Avhicli I am familiar Avitli the stoppage 

 of growth of such a primary and important structure as the inner 

 Avail of the lirain-case. This remarkaljle fact, whilst it suggests some 

 degree of degenerative change, in no Avise leads ns to suppose that the 

 l^isngolin, the Snake, and the Lizard, are in any Avay nearly related, noAV. 

 They, each and all, after separation from the main old root-stock, 

 got into their OAvn grooves ; they improved in some things, and got a 

 little Avay backAvards in others; they have not continued as they Avere 

 since the creation of the Avorld, but have suffered from the mutability 

 of all things on this planet ; and at times, like Man, in his higher 

 s}ihere, Avhen they Avere not improving, they Avere degenerating. 



In all the endless moditications of animal forms Ave see that the 

 morphological force has ever been looking toAvards tAvo ends in each 

 individual creature, nauiely, food and safefu. 



In the case of onr OAvn species, that Avhich is to be desired is, first 

 that a man may eat of the labour of his hands, and then that he may 



