OUK FACE FROM FISH TO MAN 



in this feature as in thousands of others, created so 

 nearly in the same image? "Parallelism" say the 

 anti-Darwinians; but physiology, comparative 

 anatomy and allied sciences answer, "Blood 

 kinship." 



The story of the early evolution of the human 

 nose would be strong reading for the delicate 

 stomachs of our Mid- Victorian lady relatives. 

 But in these Neo-Elizabethan days we will not 

 shudder unduly at the thought that noses, at least 

 of the vertebrate type, were first created in order 

 to lead our shark-like ancestors straight to the 

 feast — some nameless horror wallowing in the 

 uneasy tide and alive with the writhing creatures 

 that consumed it. Even to this day, odors cannot 

 reach us except in water vapor. 



The shark's smelling apparatus is comparatively 



simple — an extended surface of membrane sensitive 



to olfactory stimuli, folded into a rosette and 



packed neatly into the olfactory capsule, one on 



each side of the head. A small opening, the nostril, 



admits the water to be tested, and a groove, the 



oronasal groove of primitive sharks (Fig. 66A), 



connects the nose with the mouth cavity. In the 



embryo shark and embryo mammal the nasal sac 



154 



