CHAPTEK IX 



MELCHIOR NEUMAYR "DIE STAMME DES THIERREICHS " 



(THE BRANCHES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM) 



The connection between Zoology and Palaeontology Variation of 

 existing types Series of forms Mutations Transitional types 

 The gaps in Palaeontology. 



THE year 1889 saw appear a work of the very 

 highest rank, due to one of the most brilliant 

 minds in modern palaeontology, viz : Melchior Neu- 

 mayr, whose name will remain closely associated 

 with that of the illustrious geologist Edward Suess 

 in the universal brilliancy of the Austrian geological 

 school of the end of the nineteenth century. 



The work of Neumayr is, strictly speaking, a 

 treatise on palaeontology, but a philosophical treatise, 

 and the first in which the history of fossil beings 

 was presented with the help of a method which 

 endeavours to follow in time the evolution of 

 every group under examination. The prema- 

 ture decease of the learned Viennese unfortunately 

 stopped the work at its first volume, which is 

 devoted to the lowest form of animals up to 

 the Brachiopods. But the lengthy and masterly 

 Introduction with which the book commences is 

 a luminous exposition of the philosophical principles 

 which had guided the author in his fine researches 

 on transformist palaeontology. 



