108 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



on our hearth-rugs; and the descendants of the 

 very dogs which irreligiously worried those cats 

 are to this day worrying the descendants of those 

 sacred cats. The grains of wheat which the savans 

 found in the tombs were planted in the soil of 

 France, and grew into waving corn in no respect 

 distinguishable from the corn grown from the grain 

 of the previous year. 



Have these familiar facts any important signifi- 

 cance? Are we entitled to draw any conclusion 

 from the testimony of paintings and sculptures, at 

 least four thousand years old, which show that sev- 

 eral of our well-known species of animals, and sev- 

 eral of the well-marked races of men, existed then, 

 and have not changetfsince then ? Nimrod hunted 

 with dogs and horses, which would be claimed as 

 ancestors by the dogs and horses at Melton Mow- 

 bray. The negroes who attended Semiramis and 

 Khamses are in every respect similar to the negroes 

 now toiling amid the sugar-canes of Alabama. If, 

 during four thousand years, species and races have 

 not changed, why should we suppose that they ever 

 will change ? Why should we not take our stand 

 on that testimony, and assert that species are un- 

 changeable ? 



Such has been the argument of Cuvier and his 

 followers; an argument on which they have laid 

 great stress, and which they have further strength- 

 ened by a challenge to adversaries to produce one 

 single case where a transmutation of species has 



