106 THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



in order to prove this beyond doubt, to state that 

 there existed, as early as the middle Miocene period, 

 small carnivora which already present, in their 

 dental and osteological structure, nearly all the 

 characteristics of the true Bear excepting its size. 

 M. Schlosser has rightly given the name of Ursavus 

 to these miniature bears, which exist both in the 

 middle and upper Miocene. These facts permit us 

 to foresee the discovery of still smaller Ursavuses 

 in the lower Miocene and perhaps in the Oligocene. 

 Consequently Gaudry and Boule have only studied 

 various degrees of the adaptation of tuberculous 

 teeth to a carnivorous diet in several groups of 

 Carnivora ; they certainly have not elucidated the 

 real origin of the Bear group. 



It now becomes easy, thanks to these examples, 

 which could be multiplied, to estimate precisely, 

 from the point of view of the general principles of 

 evolution, the kind of errors created by the method 

 Gaudry has employed to establish his Enchame- 

 ments : 



1. The establishment of artificial affiliations, which 

 would derive one genus of animals from another 

 with which it has no real genealogical link. A formal 

 criterion of these inexact affiliations is the total 

 absence of transitional forms between the genera 

 wrongly grouped together. It is nowise sufficient 

 to plead, as has often been done since Darwin, the 

 insufficiency of the palaeontological evidence. The 

 transitional forms between these genera not only 

 do not exist, but cannot possibly have existed, since 

 the facts observed point out to us that we are deal- 

 ing with distinct and parallel branches, each of 



