108 JUNGLE PEACE 



was a friend, Thier's The Consulate and the 

 Empire. Then I walked past stacks of old- 

 fashioned novels, nearly all in three volumes. 

 Their names were strange, and I suppose they 

 would prove deadly reading to our generation; 

 but I am sure that in their day they fascinated 

 many eyes reading by the flickering light of 

 tapers and rushes. And even now they stood 

 bravely alongside Dickens and Scott. 



Finally I reached up to the highest row and 

 chose one of a series of heavy tomes whose titles 

 had completely fallen away with age and cli- 

 mate. I untied the binding string, opened at 

 random and read thus: 



* It is vain, then, any longer to insist on 

 variations of organic structure being the result 

 of habits or circumstances. Nothing has been 

 elongated, shortened or modified, either by ex- 

 ternal causes or internal volition; all that has 

 been changed has been changed suddenly, and 

 has left nothing but wrecks behind it, to adver- 

 tise us of its former existence." 



Thus wrote the Baron Cuvier many years 

 ago. And this brought me back to reality, and 

 my study of those living fossils now asleep in 

 the neighboring bunduri thorn bushes, whose 



