TRANSMUTABLE. 191 



either of the two species now existing? Or of 

 the dinornis of New Zealand, a bird standing ten 

 feet and a half high, whose bones are as large 

 again as those of the ostrich, and whose egg was 

 ten inches long, and seven in diameter? They 

 are extinct, blotted out from the face of the 

 earth for ever. While the apteryx, the most 

 aberrant of all birds, without either wings or 

 tail, still lives to prove that the weakest do not 

 always go to the wall. But the above extinct 

 animals lived in their own time in all the luxu- 

 riance of a Provident Nature. They served the 

 purpose for which they were created, and their 

 remains now attest the Power that created and 

 extinguished. 



The same rule is observed in the invertebrate 

 class. .Where do we see anything now living in 

 our seas like the ammonites, as large as cart- 

 wheels, which are found in our oolitic strata? 

 or the l]uge nautili, or ostreae ? Certainly they 

 give no evidence of the "struggle for existence," 

 and the "natural selection" of the strongest and 

 most dominant species. 



The two chapters, eleven and twelve, upon 

 geographical distribution, are the best examples 

 in the book of special pleading, or the art of 

 turning facts to suit a particular theory, assumed 

 to be true. The distinctness of the several faunas 

 throughout the world, more particularly of India 

 and Australia, and of the latter, from every other 

 country; and the great mass of proof afforded 

 by the living things in each quarter of the globe, 



