TRAXSMUTABLE. 57 



scale than the agile and graceful kangaroo ! Surely 

 natural selection must here have made a grand 

 blunder. If this is so, how much greater is 

 the bungle in the next leap. We have to jump 

 from the whale to the pig, thence to the tapir, 

 the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, the elephant. 

 One certainly feels rather comforted as the 

 subject grows warmer, to find swine so low 

 down in the scale. We next jump to the 

 horse, zebra, quagga, and ass. And here again 

 we are thankful that a very vast number 

 of ages must have passed since humanity was 

 represented by a jackass. Then come the 

 ruminants, camel, stag, the giraffe, the graceful 

 antelope, the sheep, the goat, the buffalo, the 

 bison, and the ox. 



Now we rise wonderfully in the scale. We 

 actually get a variation from the ox into the 

 sloth! the armadilla! the ant-eater! But we 

 will get on. What next? Hares and rabbits 

 for ever! Happy should we have been had the 

 Darwinian theory stopped here, for then neither 

 a dog to worry us or a man to shoot us could 

 have been developed by "natural selection." 

 The world would have been one, it is true, of 

 porcupines and moles, of beavers, rats, and mice, 

 and squirrels. Development now makes a great 

 leap. It actually jumps from the squirrel to the 

 walrus and seal, for both of these are considered 

 by naturalists to be more highly organized than 

 any I have mentioned. With what affection Mr. 

 Darwin's disciples must look upon Sir Leopold 



