102 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



genus, more especially as in each, of these breeds 

 several truly -inherited sub-breeds or species, as he 

 might have called them, could be shown him." 



The development of numerous specific forms, 

 widely distinguished from each other, out of one 

 common stock, is not a whit more improbable than 

 the development of numerous distinct languages 

 out of a common parent language, which modern 

 philologists have proved to be indubitably the case. 

 Indeed, there is a very remarkable analogy between 

 philology and zoology in this respect: just as the 

 comparative anatomist traces the existence of simi- 

 lar organs, and similar connections of these organs, 

 throughout the various animals classed under one 

 type, so does the comparative philologist detect the 

 family likeness in the various languages scattered 

 from China to the Basque Provinces, and from Cape 

 Comorin across the Caucasus to Lapland a like- 

 ness which assures him that the Teutonic, Celtic, 

 Wendic, Italic, Hellenic, Iranic, and Indie languages 

 are of common origin, and separated from the Ara- 

 bian, Aramean, and Hebrew languages, which have 

 another origin. Let us bring together a French- 

 man, a Spaniard, an Italian, a Portuguese, a Walla- 

 chian, and a Khastian, and we shall hear six very 

 different languages spoken, the speakers severally 

 unintelligible to each other, their languages differ- 

 ing so widely that one can not be regarded as the 

 modification of the other ; yet we know most posi- 

 tively that all these languages are offshoots from 



