50 MAMMALIAN DESCENT. [LECT. II. 



the race of men, and shows, at present, no signs of becoming obsolete. 

 Moreover, that first correlation, namely, the existence of milk-glands 

 and a hairy covering, appears to have entered into the very soul of 

 the creatures of this class, and to have become psychical as well as 

 physical, for in that type, which is only, for a while, inferior to the 

 angels, the fondness for this kind of outer covering is a strong and 

 ineradicable passion. But it began, physically, as a sudden modifica- 

 tion, with those Archaic Prototheria ; yet in what forms did it appear ? 

 Hardly, at first, one would suppose, in the form of wool, rather of 

 coarse hair mixed with spines, as in the existing Echidna. I strongly 

 suspect that it struggled for a good while with the old kinds of 

 covering, namely, scales, both bony, in the skin proper, and horny, in 

 the cuticle. If so, the existing Edentata, of which I shall speak 

 anon, are a much more precious legacy of time and nature than they 

 have hitherto seemed, even to the most enthusiastic biologists. In a 

 purely technical paper on this group, lately read before the Royal 

 Society, 1 I have said that the fact that in the Armadillos the new 

 husbandry, or growth of hair the correlate of milk-glands thrives 

 badly on the old stony ground of Reptilian horn-covered (bony) scales, 

 breaking out where it can among the clefts is not more won- 

 derful than that this same new growth of hair in the Pangolin 

 should mat itself together, and imitate the scales of Reptiles and 

 Fishes. 



If this be true of those placental descendants of the almost ovi- 

 parous Monotremes, much more, one would suppose, must it be true 

 when we are speaking of the very first evolution of a hairy creature. 

 Indeed, if the first creature clothed by the Creator, to speak enigmati- 

 cally after the manner of men with the hairy skin of a beast, did, 

 per saltum, gain his hairy coat in one great metamorphic leap, it would 

 be nothing wonderful if some of his descendants should backslide a 

 little, and, under degenerating influence, now and then show some 

 mark or stigma of the old Reptilian nature. In the paper just 

 quoted, speaking of the scale-covered Pangolins, I have remarked 

 " If the term Reptilian might be applied to characters seen 

 in any placental mammal, it might to what I find in this. This 

 creature has most remarkable correspondences with the Reptilian 



1 See Proceedings of the Royal Society for June 1884, p. 80. 



