Of the Cont'iiiu'ity of the Aniiiutl Kingdom, ^-c. 153 



question in a satisfactory manner. He even felt that he was not 

 altogether excusable in meddling with it, at a period when the 

 discussion which it involves might be considered premature ; 

 but a particular circumstance induced him to enter upon it. " I 

 had been reading," said he, " some important observations 

 communicated to the Academy by Dr Roulin *. My mind be- 

 ing pre-occu pied with old ideas respecting the antediluvian ani- 

 mals, there escaped me, in drawing up my report, a reflection 

 which, to be rightly apprehended, would have required a 

 greater developement. This has been remarked, and I have 

 been enjoined to do justice to the subject." 



M. Geoffroy St Hilaire believes in an uninterrupted succes- 

 sion of the animal kingdom, effected by means of generation, 

 from the earliest ages of the world up to the present day. The 

 ancient animals, indeed, whose remains have been preserved in 

 the fossil state, are all, or at least almost all, different from those 

 which now exist at the surface of the globe. But this is not a 

 reason for thinking that they could not have been the ancestors 

 of these latter. In the^r*^ place, the extinct species are united 

 with the living species by the closest analogy. All have with- 

 out difficulty entered into the prescribed limits of our great 

 classifications ; all, as being formed of analogous organs, seem to 

 be nothing but modifications of the same being, of what is now 

 called the vertebrate animal. 



Viewing the animal creation in its aggregate from the com- 

 mencement up to the present epoch, the author even thinks he 

 can recognise in it a progressive series like the following: — Ichthy- 

 osaurus, Plesiosaurus, Pterodactylus, Mesosaurus, Teleosaurus, 

 Megalonyx, Megatherium, Anoplotheriuvi, Palceotherium, &c.; 

 all animals that have been transformed in such a manner, that 

 none of the genera which they form subsists at the present day. 

 Through the medium of the mastodons, the author connects 

 with these more ancient inhabitants of the globe the animals that 

 succeeded them, and which are composed of species of the same 

 genera, some extinct and antediluvian, and others still living. 

 These latter are those which have been able to accommodate 

 themselves without transformation, or at least by only undergo- 



• Vide account of Dr Roulin's observations in voL vi. pages 190-193 of 

 this Journal. 



