48 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



the mammary gland. Did no special provision exist, the 

 young one must infallibly be choked by the intrusion of 

 the milk into the windpipe. But there is a special provi- 

 sion. The larynx is so elongated that it rises up into the 

 posterior end of the nasal passage, and is thus enabled to 

 give free entrance to the air for the lungs, while the milk 

 passes harmlessly on each side of this elongated larynx, 

 and so safely attains the gullet behind it. 



Adult Cetaceans have a similar contrivance, to exclude 

 water from the windpipe. 



Now, on the Darwinian hypothesis, either all mammals 

 descended from marsupial progenitors, or else the mar- 

 supials sprung from animals having in most respects the 

 ordinary mammalian structure. 



On the first alternative, how did "Natural Selection" 

 remove this (at least perfectly innocent and harmless) 

 structure in almost all other mammals, and, having done 

 so, again reproduce it in precisely those forms which alone 

 require it, namely, the Cetacea ? That such a harmless 

 structure need not be removed any Darwinian must confess, 

 since a structure exists in both the crocodiles and gavials, 

 which enables the former to breathe themselves while 

 drowning the prey which they hold in their mouths. On 

 Mr. Darwin's hypothesis it tould only have been developed 

 where useful, therefore not in the gavials (!) which feed on 

 fish, but which yet retain, as we might expect, this, in 

 them, superfluous but harmless formation. 



On the second alternative, how did the elongated larynx 

 itself arise, seeing that if its development had lagged 

 behind that of the maternal structura the young primeval 

 kangaroo must have been choked : while without the 

 injecting power in the mother, it must have been starved ? 



