474 ZOOLOGY, 



in Southern Africa, on the plains of the Koonap or the slopes of 

 the Winterbergen, where roams the wild horse, to which this 

 young of a domestic horse bears the strongest resemblance. The 

 obvious inference is, that even in animals so high in the scale of 

 mammals as the solidungula, the young is a generic animal, 

 including in it the colour, proportions, movements, and habits 

 of the genus, or natural family, of all its species, wherever placed, 

 and representing, more especially in this instance, a wild species 

 of that family, never domesticated nor subdued by man. Even 

 here, where we should expect specific and other influences to 

 have told strongly on the product that is, the young, we find 

 the generic law to be in full force, and that the young of the 

 domestic horse resembles a species peculiar to another region of 

 the earth. The natural family, then, of the solidungula embraces 

 in the young of each species all the forms which it, the genus, 

 can or has assumed on the earth. The quagga and the zebra 

 may become extinct ; but their forms remain in the generic 

 young t)f whatever species still lives. The fossil horse belonged, 

 no doubt, to the same family ; as the exterior is lost, the precise 

 species cannot now be determined. That he belonged to any 

 species now living I do not believe ; but he was of the family, 

 and may appear again. Thus the successive appearance of new 

 forms or species is no new creation, but merely the development 

 of forms already existing in every natural family. The extinc- 

 tion of species which has gone on through millions of years has 

 led some to the belief that nature hastens onwards to the extinc- 

 tion of life on the globe. It is possible ; but I lean to the oppo- 

 site opinion, believing that living nature will have no end. That 

 which has been may be again, the potentiality existing in every 

 species of every natural family ; and to this creed point the 

 infinite affiliations of germs, not confined to natural families, but 

 extending to all that lives. These are speculations on which I 

 do not enter. Primordial forms are visible in all germs ; the 

 germs themselves must be eternal. 



"If we inquire into the law of generic forms lower in the 

 scale, as in fishes, to which I have just alluded, we find still 

 stronger confirmation of the point I now seek to determine. The 

 natural family of the Salmonidae, as the one with which I am 

 best acquainted, was that fixed on for the inquiry. Look at the 

 young salmon when but a few inches in length, and you will find 

 that in its dentition, colouring, and proportions, it is not & specific 

 but a generic animal i.e. it possesses (and is therefore perfect) 

 all the natural history characteristics of the three sub-families 

 into which the Salmonidse have been divided. At first, for 

 example, its dentition is the type of the common trout : as it 

 grows it assumes the character which we find to prevail in some 

 of the Forelle, or sea trout. Lastly, it assumes the true s:ilmon 



