86 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



is the result of a long, steady evolutionary 

 growth. 



The theory that birds have descended from 

 a remote reptilian ancestry has so many facts 

 to support it that, until some convincing dis- 

 coveries in paleontology shall be made to 

 the contrary tending, we must accept it as 

 probably true. Unfortunately, the study of 

 comparative anatomy is both infinitely com- 

 plicated and immeasurably dry to the lay- 

 man, as contradistinguished from the 

 scientist, wherefore much the greater num- 

 ber of even cultured people will probably al 

 ways rest in ignorance of the startling 

 details pertaining to evolution in nature. 

 Few of us, indeed, have the time and the 

 necessary self-devotion, even if the scarce 

 and precious material furnished by nature 

 were always at hand, to make the investiga- 

 tions necessary to a high knowledge of nat- 

 ural science. Large museums are far apart, 

 scientific books are expensive, and the field of 

 each science is as wide as the whole range of 

 nature: consequently, none but the favored 

 or the self -de voted few can afford the luxury 

 of following, as Darwin and Huxley and 

 Milne-Edwards and Owen and Marsh have 

 done, the flitting spirit which beckons us 

 back and back, over the silent, desolate 

 grave-yards of the ages, to the beginnings of 

 things. Still, we may all catch a light breath, 

 so to speak, of the air from the oldest, or 

 rather the youngest, period of organic life. 

 Any one of us may choose a slight, narrow, 

 but far-reaching current of inquiry, and float 

 down it, from time to time, until at last the 

 end is reached, .away back in the chaos upon 

 which moved the Spirit of Creation at the 

 dawn of day. 



