TRANSMUTABLE. 129 



for which he cannot account, some imperfections 

 which he cannot understand. He, for instance, 

 may think it an anomaly that the bat, which is 

 a mammal, should have wings ; but when he sees 

 it feeding at night upon those crepuscular and 

 nocturnal insects, which would otherwise prove 

 injurious to man, and when he further considers 

 that to fly, and see, and feed at night, must 

 require an organization and structure adapted to 

 a life during the day in holes and crannies, and 

 therefore a mammalian mode of propagation, in- 

 stead of an oviparous one, how changed becomes 

 the almost impious thought of such a structure 

 being an imperfection or anomaly in nature! 

 It would, in fact, require volumes to explain 

 what at first sight appear abnormal in living 

 beings. But how few are the real or apparent 

 anomalous forms, when compared with the great 

 mass of living beings, each adapted to its sphere 

 of life, and clearly designed for the position it 

 occupies in the scale of existence! 



Look at any one order with the eye and 

 knowledge of a comparative anatomist, and observe 

 the unity of type in structure, yet with such a 

 difference in form, and habit, and mode of life. 

 Take, for instance, the carnivora. We shall 

 find a unity of type between the lion, the tiger 

 and the cat, and yet how different! This unity 

 is fainter between the hyaena and ichneumon, or 

 between the civet cat and the weasel, or the 

 latter and the badger or the bear. But where 

 are the transitional forms, the evidences of 



