XIL] "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 323 



Among the fossils of Pikermi, Gaudry found the 

 successive stages by which the ancient civets passed 

 into the more modern hyaenas ; through the Tertiary 

 deposits of Western America, Marsh tracked the suc- 

 cessive forms by which the ancient stock of the horse 

 has passed into its present form ; and innumerable less 

 complete indications of the mode of evolution of other 

 groups of the higher mammalia have been obtained. 

 In the remarkable memoir on the phosphorites of 

 Quercy, to which I have referred, M. Filhol describes 

 no fewer than seventeen varieties of the genus Cyno- 

 dictis, which fill up all the interval between the 

 viverine animals and the bear-like dog Amphicyon ; 

 nor do I know any solid ground of objection to the 

 supposition that, in this Cynodictis- Amphicyon group, 

 we have the stock whence all the Viveridse, Felidae, 

 Hysenidse, Canidae, and perhaps the Procyonidaa and 

 Ursidae, of the present fauna have been evolved. On 

 the contrary, there is a great deal to be said in favour. 



In the course of summing up his results, M. Filhol 

 observes : 



" During the epoch of the phosphorites, great 

 changes took place in animal forms, and almost the 

 same types as those which now exist became defined 

 from one another. 



"Under the influence of natural conditions of 

 which we have no exact knowledge, though traces of 

 them are discoverable, species have been modified in 

 a thousand ways : races have arisen which, becoming 

 fixed, have thus produced a corresponding number of 

 secondary species." 



