22 



hundred thousandth part of such a tail ab initio in the cow, the giraffe, 

 or the ass, just as I have said. 



I believe that it was so, though what conceivable use it could 

 have been to that animal as a " fly-flapper." even when it grew to be 

 an inch long (for I do not pretend to say that it came per saltum), you 

 must ask some one else to tell you. 



I believe the same, the very same, of all the other parts of 

 animals, mutatis mutandis, such as the trunk of the elephant, the horn 

 of the rhinoceros, and the hoof of the horse, &c., &c., &c. Neither 

 Aristotle, indeed, nor Pliny, Buffon, nor Limiseus ever thought anything 

 of the sort ; but what of that ? I do, and that is enough for me, and 

 if it is not enough for you, it is all I can offer you. 



I believe that as many aquatic creatures have become land animals 

 so many land animals were once upon a time denizens of the sea. 

 That as the giraffe was once a fish, so, as I have elsewhere said, a 

 bear became a whale, or uncommonly like one, " catching flies :" possibly, 

 as the thought just strikes me, the ancestor of the flycatcher, the bird 

 so called who knows ? You may tell me that it would be a curiosity 

 in its way. No doubt about it, but being dovetailed (apropos of tails) 

 into my theory, it must have been so Don't ask me to give up such 

 a convenient argument for making up my book. Non possum HX. 



I believe, " I we no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered by 

 natural selection more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, 

 with larger and longer mouths, till a creature was produced as mon- 

 struous as a whale.'' I repeat it if I can get you to swallow this as easily 

 as my bear did his flies, well and good : if not, I can only say that it has 

 all gone down with me and my brother philosophers. True, this 

 wonderful creed, as promulgated in my first edition, having been ridi- 

 culed by the Rev. F. 0. Morris in his " Difficulties of Darwinism," I 

 have thought it expedient to omit that from the next edition of my 

 modern " Metamorphoses," but only as a sujtpressio rerl. 



I believe all the time that this is in harmony with all the rest of 

 my story-book, and as such no doubt you will not consider it as a 

 whit more ridiculous than all the rest of it. I leave it to you to 

 strike the balance of absurdity, as you consider it, between my title 

 page and my "tail-piece." Have I not Horace on my side, where he 

 writes, Dcsinit in jjixcon mulier fomttosa fnipeme? 



I believe that, as elsewhere I make fishes go on land to become 

 land animals with tails, so I can make my land animal go into the 

 water to grow his tail. 



I believe that the penguin and the ant. the hog and the swallow, 

 the camel and the kingfisher, the porpoise and the bat are, one and 

 all, as well as ourselves, " joined together by family ties," though from what 

 common ancestor they spring is not certain. Certain, however, it is 

 that something of the sort took place, me judice, 



I believe that our having all this mixed blood in our veins, may 

 perhaps account for the different dispositions we see in ourselves, our 

 friends, and relations ; who can tell ? I grant you that it may be 

 rather hard to prove it ; but that is no concern of mine. All I have 

 to do is to propound theories, and the more outrageous the better for 

 me and my book. 



I believe that an "ideal similarity," leading to an ancestor of 

 which we know nothing, is, or ought to be, very convincing. 



I believe, "I see no good reason to doubt." that when " males and 

 females of any animal differ in structure, colour, or ornament," the 

 admiration of the females for such has producedthe apparently different 

 species we see. I admit that though I have elsewhere stated that 

 natural selection always works for some useful end, there is no useful 



