So EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



has a single hoof, in the same way as we see him follow 

 the horse in daily life, than to follow up the horse by 

 the zebra, an animal which is little known to us, and 

 which has no other connection with the horse than the 

 fact that it has a single hoof ? "* 



Can we suppose that Buffon really saw no more con- 

 nection than this? The writer whom we shall pre- 

 sently find t declining to admit any essential difference 

 between the skeletons of man and of the horse, can 

 here see no resemblance between the zebra and the 

 horse, except that they each have a single hoof. Is 

 he to be taken at his word ? 



It is perhaps necessary to tell the reader that Buffon 

 carried the foregoing scheme into practice as nearly as 

 he could in the first fifteen volumes of his ' Natural 

 History.' He begins with man and then goes on to the 

 horse, the ass, the cow, sheep, goat, pig, dog, &c. One 

 would be glad to know whether he found it always more 

 easy to decide in what order of familiarity this or that 

 animal would stand to the majority of his readers than 

 other classifiers have found it to know whether an indi- 

 vidual more resembles one species or another; probably 

 he never gave the matter a thought after he had gone 

 through the first dozen most familiar animals, but 

 settled generally down into a classification which 

 becomes more and more specific as when he treats of 

 the apes and monkeys till he reaches the birds, when 

 he openly abandons his original idea, in deference, as 

 he says, to the opinion of " le peuple des naturalistes." 



* Tom. i. p. 3(5. 



t See p. 88 of tliis volume; see also p. 155, find 164. 



