LECT. IV.] FOOD AND SAFETY. 117 



skull (occiput). But none of the Edentata have this piece except the 

 Aard-vark, although the Marsupials agree with higher forms in having 

 this superadded plate. Now, as far as I can see at present in my 

 dissections of the young of the Platypus and Echidna, the parietals, 

 as in Lizards and Snakes, fuse together very early, and do not keep 

 apart, either for a long time, or for the whole of life, as in noble 

 mammals ; their back-skull is very large, and turns over the brain- 

 cavity; it is roof as well as wall.' In the Edentata, generally, this early 

 reptilian fusion of the parietals does not take place, but they have a 

 huge back-skull, which helps the parietals, without an intercalary 

 interparietal to finish the skull, above. The Pangolins, whose arrested 

 covering of hair degenerates, so to speak, into a quasi-reptilian 

 condition, have, in some species, a breast-bone with long, hinder, carti- 

 laginous horns, like Stellio among the Lizards. Also, on the right 

 side, in the abdomen of this unsymmetrical creature, there are four 

 cartilaginous abdominal ribs, like those found in certain Lizards, 

 namely, Chamceleo, Polychnis, and the archaic New Zealand 

 Hatteria. 



More than this, in the mammals whose embryology I have studied, 

 I have never found such evident marks of degradation of the primary 

 or cartilaginous skull as in the Pangolin ; the wonderfully specialised 

 and peculiar skulls of Serpents, Lizards, and the Tortoise tribe, are 

 the only other instances in which I am familiar with the stoppage 

 of growth of such a primary and important structure as the inner 

 wall of the brain-case. This remarkable fact, whilst it suggests some 

 degree of degenerative change, in no wise leads us to suppose that the 

 Pangolin, the Snake, and the Lizard, are in any way nearly related, now. 

 They, each and all, after separation from the main old root-stock, 

 got into their own grooves ; they improved in some things, and got a 

 little way backwards in others; they have not continued as they were 

 since the creation of the world, but have suffered from the mutability 

 of all things on this planet ; and at times, like Man, in his higher 

 sphere, when they were not improving, they were degenerating. 



In all the endless modifications of animal forms we see that the 

 morphological force has ever been looking towards two ends in each 

 individual creature, namely, food and safety. 



In the case of our own species, that which is to be desired is, first 

 that a man may eat of the labour of his hands, and then that he may 



