CURIOUS CREATURES. 



us commence our researches into curious 

 Zoology with the noblest of created beings, 

 Man ; and, if we may believe Darwin, he 

 must have gone through many phases, and 

 gradual mutations, before he arrived at his 

 present proud position of Master and Conqueror of the 

 World. 



This philosopher does not assign a high place in the 

 animal creation to proud man's protogenitor, and we 

 ought almost to feel thankful to him for not going further 

 back. He begins with man as an Ascidian, which is the 

 lowest form of anything of a vertebrate character, with 

 which we are acquainted ; and he says thus, in his 

 " Descent of Man " : 



" The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the 

 Vertebrata, at which we are able to obtain an obscure 

 glance, apparently consisted of a group of marine animals, 

 resembling the larvae of existing Ascidians. These 

 animals probably gave rise to a group of fishes, as lowly 

 organised as the lancelet ; and from these the Ganoids, 

 and other fishes like the Lepidosiren, must have been 

 developed. From such fish a very small advance would 

 carry us on to the amphibians. We see that birds and 

 reptiles were once intimately connected together; and 



