Zoological Society. 221 
But how probable soever such a successivé change and advance 
in perfection may be, the geological facts cannot be adduced, 
without alteration and interpolation, as confirming the doctrine 
of a continuous change of beings, such as would be required to 
establish a development by which more complicated forms are 
the offspring of more simple prototypes. Such a view would 
require another distribution of fossils in the succeeding strata— 
so that, for instance, fossil Cephalopods should be the latest of 
all mollusks, and not, as they really are, already represented in 
the oldest fossiliferous rocks. If the species have changed by 
degrees, we should expect to find traces of this gradual modifi- 
cation. If one form gave birth to another, why should we not 
find some fossils between mollusks, or insects, and Vertebrata ? 
Such a discovery has never been made. 
It is plain, if we are sincere and unbiassed observers, that 
geological facts give no support to those hypotheses we have 
been treating of, and that they rather militate against such 
theories, which cannot deserve the name of natural theories at 
all. Creation, the first origin of things, is, and perhaps always 
will be, a mystery ; the mystery is by no means elucidated if we 
assume germs. ‘The first animal, for instance, that possessed 
organs of vision has to be derived from another without eyes. 
But why should such a supposition seem clearer and more intel- 
ligible than the creation of an entire animal provided with eyes ? 
Here science does not shut her books, as it has been said by 
some: true science never opened books on such questions. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Dec. 8, 1863.—E. W. H. Holdsworth, Esq,, F.Z.S., in the Chair. 
On tHe Breepine or THE GREEN SANDPIPER (HELODROMAS 
ocHrRopus). By Atrrep Newron, M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S8. 
Ornithologists are aware of the very different positions often chosen 
for their nests by birds of the same species. Thus Eagles may be 
found sometimes building their eyries upon trees, at others on cliffs, 
and again sometimes absolutely upon the flat ground. The same 
may be said of some species of Falcons and of some Herons. Cer- 
tain Crows also and the Stock-Dove (Columba Cinas) exhibit a like 
disparity of habit. Even among the members of the Gallinaceous 
order a similar diversity is occasioually, though rarely, to be observed. 
Thave been told, on authority I cannot question, of a common Phea- 
sant (Phasianus colchicus) and of a Capercally (Tetrao Urogallus) 
each choosing a nest in a tree wherein to lay its eggs. Instances of 
the common Wild Duck (dnas Boschas) breeding in hollow stumps 
