II.] 



INCIPIENT STRUCTURES. 



63 



" rattling " and " expanding " snakes. As to any power 

 of fascination exercised by means of these actions, the 

 most distinguished naturalists, certainly the most distin- 

 guished erpetologists, entirely deny it, and it is opposed 

 to the careful observations of those known to us.'" 



COBRA. 



(^Copied, by permission, from Sir Andrew Smith's ^'Reptiles of SouVJ" Africa.^') 



The mode of formation of both the eye and the ear of 

 the highest animals is such that, if it is (as most Darwini- 

 ans assert processes of development to be) a record of the 

 actual steps by which such structures were first evolved in 

 antecedent forms, it almost amounts to a demonstration 



'^ I am again indebted to the kindness of ]^Ir. A. D. Rartlctt, among 

 others. That gentleman informs me that, so far from any mental emo- 

 tion being produced in ral)bits by the presence and movements of snakes, , 

 he has actually seen a male and female rabbit satisfy the sexual instinct 

 i \ that presence, a rabbit being seized by a snake when in coUu. 



