Zoological Society. 221 



But how probable soever such a successive change and advance 

 in perfection may be, the geological facts cannot be adduced, 

 without alteration and interpolation, as confirming the doctrine 

 of a continuous change of beings, such as would be required to 

 establish a development by which more complicated forms arc 

 the offspring of more simple prototypes. Such a view would 

 require another distribution of fossils in the succeeding strata — 

 80 that, for instance, fossil Cephalopods should be the latest of 

 all mollusks, and not, as tlicy really are, already represented in 

 the oldest fossiliferous rocks. If the species have changed by 

 degrees, we should expect to find traces of this gradual modifi- 

 cation. If one form gave birth to another, why should we not 

 find some fossils between mollusks, or insects, and Vcrtebrata ? 

 Such a discovery has never been made. 



It is plain, if we arc sincere and unbiassed observers, that 

 geological facts give no support to those hypotheses we have 

 been treating of, and that they rather militate against such 

 theories, which cannot deserve the name of natural theories at 

 all. Creation, the first origin of things, is, and perhaps always 

 will be, a mystery ; the mystery is by no nieans elucidated if we 

 assume germs. The first animal, for instance, that possessed 

 organs of vision has to be derived from another without eyes. 

 But why should such a sup])osition seem clearer and more intel- 

 ligible than the creation of an entire animal provided with eyes ? 

 Here science does not shut her books, as it has been said by 

 some : true science never opened books on such questions. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LE.\RNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Dec. 8, 1863.— E. W. H. Holdsworth, Esq., F.Z.S., in the Chair. 



On the Breeding of the Green Sandpiper (IIelodromas 

 ocHROi'Us). By Alfred Newton, M..\., I'.L.S., F.Z.S. 



Ornithologists are aware of the very different positions often chosen 

 for tlicir nests by birds of the same species. Thus Eagles may be 

 found sometimes building their eyries upon trees, at others on cliffs, 

 and again sometimes absolutely upon the flat ground. The same 

 may be said of sonic species of Falcons and of some llerons. Cer- 

 tain Crows also and the Stock-Dove {Columba (Enas) exhibit a like 

 disparity of habit. Even among the members of the Gallinaceous 

 order a similar diversity is occasionally, though rarely, to be observed. 

 I have been told, on authority I cannot question, of a common Phea- 

 sant (P/uisianus culc/iicus) and of a t'npcreally {Tetrao Urof/allus) 

 each cli(;osing a nest in a tree wherein to lay its eggs. Instances ot 

 the common Wild Duck (^Inas Boschas) breeding in hollow stumps 



