THE WHITE CHINA GOOSE. 443 



Guinea Fowl ; prolific mules are constantly occurring between 

 all sorts of species of Geese ; and it is well and practically 

 known, that though varieties breed freely with each other, 

 nothing is so difficult as to establish a cross that shall be a 

 perfect amalgamation of two distinct varieties. Even indi- 

 vidual peculiarities are reproduced in the course of generations. 

 In truth, species and varieties differ only in degree. If we 

 admit that the latter are merely recent changes of organization, 

 we cannot refuse to allow that the former are so likewise ; and 

 thence proceeding backwards, we must apply the same view 

 to genera and classes, till we arrive at last at the theory of 

 the development of all animated beings from Monads, as ad- 

 vocated by Lamarck, and more recently by the author of the 

 " Vestiges of Creation." This is one mode of explaining the 

 diversity of Nature ; the other is by supposing that animals 

 were originally created as we now see them, and that any ap- 

 parent gaps in the chain or network are caused by the ex- 

 tinction of certain races, not by the uprising of new forms into 

 existence, since the creation of Man, at least. Now, we have 

 indisputable proof of the extinction of very many genera and 

 species of innumerable Pre- Adamite animals, (and the reader 

 is particularly requested to observe that we have now existing 

 among us many Pre- Adamite animals* the Common Badger, 



* Remains of the Aurochs (a species which still survives by virtue 

 of strict protective laws, in extensive forests, which form part of the 

 Russian empire,) are found in the superficial deposits of various 

 parts of Europe, some of which carry the antiquity of the Aurochs 

 as far back as the extinct Pachyderms of the newer pliocene deposits. 



" That the present European Beaver is not the degenerate de- 

 scendant of the great Trogontherium, is proved, not only by the dif- 

 ferences in the dental structure, pointed out in the preceding section, 

 -but likewise by the fact that Beavers, in no respect differing in size 

 or anatomical character from the Castor Europeans of the present day, 

 co-existed with the Trogontherium. Remains of the Beaver have been 



