86 PENIKESE. 



most wholly indistinguishable from one another, per- 

 haps quite so. We cannot place these doubtful 

 forms in separate families, for it will not only show 

 that we have not tried to separate them and give 

 them their true places, but that we have built up a 

 false classification, that cannot stand because it has 

 no foundation. Now! what we evolutionists claim is, 

 not that these branches are distinct creations, created 

 to puzzle the naturalist, but that they are diverging 

 species from branches that insensibly run into each 

 other, in the same way that two unparallel lines will, 

 at some time, meet, however different they are at 

 their extremities. Thus we think that the letter V 

 should be the symbol of the evolutionist; thus you 

 will see how one branch insensibly runs into another, 

 and why it is we find no intermediate forms why it 

 .is, also, that the 'missing link' of Darwin, as it is 

 called, is an animal to be dreamed of rather than to 

 be actually seen. 



"Now to prove more completely this nearness of 

 relation, this running of one group into another, let 

 us take some division of the animal kingdom which it 

 would seem impossible to connect with anything but 

 itself. For instance everybody knows a bird by its 

 feathers. But, if w r e examine its skeleton, we find 

 that it corresponds to a reptile standing upon two 

 legs; \\iththefrontlegsslightly modified to suit a 

 different sphere of action, the long tail off to effect 

 a balance, and the head slightly altered to suit a 

 change in food. Note, now, the result of investiga- 

 tion! An animal was found, some years since, with 

 such truly reptilian characters, that even the best 

 anatomists thought that it was a reptile. At first, all 

 of the parts of this wonderful animal were not dis- 

 covered; but, little by little, the remaining parts 

 came to light, until the discovery of the head, by Pro- 

 fessor Marsh, completed the skeleton. All of its 

 characteristics, save one, were reptilian, and, but for 

 that one, it would have been considered the skeleton 

 of a reptile: In place of the four legs there was a 



