33£ NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS, ETC 



the reptile has now been traced upwards to a period by much 

 too early to serve the purposes of the Lamarckian. There 

 are no portions of the Archegosaurus of the Coal Measures bet- 

 ter preserved than its vertebrae. The reptile, instead of, as 

 it were, joining on to the fish in the history of creation, 

 overlaps it ; and thus the line of descent presumed by the 

 Lamarckian is a line cut ofE 



