366 NATURAL SCIENCE. Muar 
see what are “the plain facts of paleontology,’ to which it is 
suggested (p. 281) that somebody’s eyes (? mine) are “ persistently 
shut.” ’ 
‘Tt is not an occasional accidental] parallelism between the onto- 
geny and the phylogeny which I deny, but the causal relation between 
the two.” (I quote from my previous article, p. 198.) This appears to 
have been overlooked by Mr. Bather, and the whole of his article is 
consequently directed against a position which I have never held. I 
have stood perfectly still, and his explosive bullets have rushed past 
me with a violence suggestive of a shower of meteorites: his aim 
was excellent; not a single stray bullet touched me. 
Mr. Bather admits that ‘‘ von Baer’s law is undoubtedly true” in 
cases of fraternal relationship, but holds that ‘‘ there are many objec- 
tions to supposing that it is equally true ” in cases of filial relationship. 
I had quoted Darwin to show that in the case of the pigeons where 
the relationship between C. livia and the rest is of this kind (the only 
case I know of which has been tested) the law is fully applicable. 
May I therefore ask for, say, half-a-dozen of the best of the ‘‘ many 
objections” referred to ? 
In defence of myself against what has now, unfortunately, reached 
the public eye, I feel bound to correct some of Mr. Bather’s misap- 
prehensions as to my position. To each reply I will prefix the 
number of the paragraph in his article where the misrepresentation 
occurs. 
(3. Middle of p. 276.) The larval stem of Antedon, if it be, as I 
suggested, the modified equivalent of the stalk of the ancestral larva, 
need not be supposed to be anything other than what Mr. Bather 
describes, nor yet need any conclusions be drawn from it (as to the 
stem of its ancestors) which differ in the slightest from the 
conclusions he has drawn from paleontological work. 
(3.) I have not ignored ‘acceleration of development.” The 
antlers of stags were given as an example of it. 
(5. Bottom of page.) Nothing I have said will bear the interpre- 
tation here put upon it. Each transient ontogenetic stage may 
be a modified equivalent of a corresponding ontogenetic stage 
in an ancestor, and may yet be either more complex or less 
complex, or may even be so completely changed that no resemblance 
_is observable. 
(5. P. 277.) I do not feel bound to suppose, and have never 
supposed, anything at all comparable with what is here suggested. 
I do unhesitatingly say that the ontogeny described in Antedon is not 
an epitome of the ancestral history. There is a truly remarkable 
parallelism between the ontogeny and the phylogeny as here set forth. 
It is not a history, inasmuch as the correspondence between the two 
series is not one which could safely be assumed to exist apart from 
palzontological evidence. 
(7.) Let it be assumed that the evidence set forth by Darwin 
