230 THE DAWN OF LIFE. 



abundance of food was always floated to me without 

 my having to go in search of it. At length a change 

 came. Certain creatures with hard snouts and jaws 

 began to prey on me. Whence they came I know not ; 

 I cannot think that they came from the germs which I 

 had dispersed so abundantly throughout the ocean. 

 Unfortunately, just at the same time lime became a 

 little less abundant in the waters, perhaps because of 

 the great demands I myself had made, and thus it was 

 not so easy as before to produce a thick supplemental 

 skeleton for defence. So I had to give way. I have 

 done my best to avoid extinction; but it is clear that I 

 must at length be overcome, and must either disappear 

 or subside into a humbler condition, and that other 

 creatures better provided for the new conditions of the 

 world must take my place. ^^ In such terms we may 

 suppose that this patriarch of the seas might tell his 

 history, and mourn his destiny, though he might 

 also congratulate himself on having in an honest 

 way done his duty and fulfilled his function in the 

 world, leaving it to other and perhaps wiser crea- 

 tures to dispute as to his origin and fate, while much 

 less perfectly fulfilling the ends of their own exist- 

 ence. 



Thus our dawn-animal has positively no story to 

 tell as to his own introduction or his transmutation 

 into other forms of existence. He leaves the mystery 

 of creation where it was ; but in connection with the 

 subsequent history of life we can learn from him a 

 little as to the laws which have governed the succes- 



