Vice- President* s Address. 285 



render its food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead 

 as a rule to Degeneration ; just as an active healthy man 

 sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenly possessed 

 of a fortune ; or as Eome degenerated when possessed of the 

 riches of the ancient world. The habit of parasitism clearly 

 acts upon animal organisation in this way. Let the parasitic 

 life once be secured, and away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears : 

 the active, highly-gifted crab, insect, or annelid may become 

 a mere sac, absorbing nourishment and laying eggs" 

 (" Degeneration," p. 33, 1880). 



According to these views, degeneration has as firm a footing 

 in the operations of nature as evolution, and although the 

 palseontological evidence in support of it is necessarily 

 obscure, the biological cannot be gainsaid. Among the 

 animals which can be proved to be modified descendants 

 of those of more elaborate structure. Professor Lankester 

 instances parasites ; some lizards, whose limbs have become 

 atrophied ; barnacles ; wheel animalcules ; water fleas ; moss- 

 polyps, etc. The causes of degeneration are roughly summed 

 up as (1) parasitism; (2) fixity or immobility; (3) vegetative 

 nutrition ; and (4) excessive reduction of size. 



The inference which I deduce from these facts is, that the 

 origin, duration, and extinction of species have been largely 

 regulated by circumstances outside the organism itself. Why 

 the Pearly Nautilus should survive to the present day, 

 while those huge terrestrial reptiles, the Dinosauria, which 

 came into existence at a much later period, have entirely 

 disappeared, is a problem which cannot be easily answered. 

 Are we to suppose that such monsters as the Atlantosaurus, 

 which attained a length of over 80 feet and a height of 

 30 feet, or the Brontosaurus, two skeletons of which have 

 been found showing the animal to have been 50 feet in 

 length, or the huge Tguanodon, whose semi- erect skeleton 

 stands 14 feet in height, were not able to hold their own in 

 the struggle for life ? Several phenomena in the ever- 

 changing environment might be advanced as adequate 

 causes of their extinction ; as, for instance, the submerg- 

 ence of extensive areas of land, or the appearance on the 

 scene of better equipped competitors, which would either 



