"SPECIAL CREATION > : 149 



relatives ; it has curious nocturnal habits ; it is 

 exceedingly wild and untamable. Most remark- 

 able of all, and most conclusive as to specific 

 difference, Mr. Bartlett, the highly skilled head 

 keeper of the London Zoological Gardens, utterly 

 failed to induce the two males which were 

 brought over to those gardens to associate with 

 or to breed with the females of various other 

 breeds of rabbits which were repeatedly placed 

 with them. If the history of these Porto Santo 

 rabbits had been unknown to us, instead of being 

 a matter as to which there can be no doubt, every 

 naturalist would at once have accepted them as 

 a separate species. We need not hesitate, it 

 appears, to do so and to admit that it is a new 

 species which has been produced within historic 

 times and under conditions with which we are 

 fully acquainted. It may, however, be argued, 

 and quite fairly argued, that such a process of 

 evolution, though definitely proved, is a very 

 different thing from such an evolution as would 

 permit of a common ancestry for animals so far 

 apart, for example, as a whale and a rabbit, or 

 perhaps even nearer in relationship, as between a 

 lion and a seal. To discuss this further would 

 require a dissertation on the highly involved 

 question of species and varieties, and that is not 

 now to be attempted. What, however, may be 

 said is that the difficulties presented by what is 

 called phylogeny that is, the relationships of 

 different classes to one another are so great as 

 to have led more than one man of science to 

 proclaim his belief that evolution has been poly 



