330 THE COMING OF AGE OF 



counts for it by the scantiness and the imperfection of 

 that evidence. 



What is the state of the case now, when, as we 

 have seen, the amount of our knowledge respecting 

 the mammalia of the Tertiary epoch is increased fifty- 

 fold, and in some directions even approaches complete- 

 ness? 



Simply this, that, if the doctrine of evolution had 

 not existed, palaeontologists must have invented it, so 

 irresistibly is it forced upon the mind by the study of 

 the remains of the Tertiary mammalia which have been 

 brought to light since 1859. 



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 successive forms 

 by which the ancient stock of the horse has passed into 

 its present form ; and innumerable less complete indica- 

 tions of the mode of evolution of other groups of the 

 higher mammalia have been obtained. In the remark- 

 able memoir on the phosphorites of Quercy, to which I 

 have referred, M. Filhol describes no fewer than seven- 

 teen varieties of the genus Cynodictis, 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, Felidse, Hysenidce, Canidae, and perhaps the 

 Procyonidae and Ursidae, of the present fauna have been 



