II.] INCIPIENT STRUCTURES. 55 



into it by means of a special muscular envelope of the 

 mammary gland. Did no special provision exist, the young 

 one must infallibly be choked by the intrusion of the milk 

 into the windpipe. But there is a special provision. The 

 larynx is so elongated that it rises up into the posterior 

 end of the nasal passage, and is thus enabled to give free 

 entrance to the air for the lungs, while the milk passes 

 harmlessly on each side of this elongated larynx, and so 

 safely attains the gullet behind it. 



Now, on the Darwinian hypothesis, either all mammals 

 descended from marsupial progenitors, or else the marsu- 

 pials sprung from animals having in most respects the or- 

 dinary mammalian structure. 



On the first alternative, how did " Natural Selection " 

 remove this (at least perfectly innocent and harmless) struct- 

 ure in almost all other mammals, and, having done so, 

 again reproduce it in precisely those forms which alone re- 

 quire it, namely, the Cetacea ? That such a harmless struct- 

 ure 7ieed not be removed, an}'^ Darwinian must confess, 

 since a structure exists in both the crocodiles and gavials, 

 which enables the former to breathe themselves while 

 drowning the prey which they hold in their mouths. On 

 Mr. Darwin's hypothesis it could only have been developed 

 where useful, therefore not in the gavials (I) which feed on 

 fish, but which yet retain, as we might expect, this, in them, 

 superfluous but harmless formation. 



On the second alternative, how did the elongated larynx 

 itself arise, seeing that if its development lagged behind 

 that of the maternal structure, the young primeval kanga- 

 roo must be choked ; while, without the injecting power in 

 the mother, it must be starved? The struggle by the sole 

 action of which such a form was developed must indeed 

 have been severe ! 



The sea-urchins (Echinus) present us also with structures 

 the origin of which it seems impossible to explain by the 



