41 



I believe the same, the very same, of all the other parts of 

 animals, mutatis mutandis ^ such as the trunk of the elephant, the 

 horn of the rhinoceros, and the hoof of the horse, &c., &c., &c. 

 Neither Aristotle, indeed, nor Pliny, Buffon, Cuvier, Buckland, 

 Sedgwick, or Linnaeus ever thought anything of the sort ; but 

 what of that ? I do, and that is enough for me, and if it is 

 not enough for you, it is all I can offer you. 



I believe that as many aquatic creatures have become land 

 animals, so many land animals were once upon a time denizens of 

 the sea. That as the giraffe was once a fish, so, as I have else- 

 where said, a bear became a whale, or uncommonly like one, 

 " catching flies ;" possibly, as the thought just strikes me, the 

 ancestor of the flycatcher, the bird so called who knows ? You 

 may tell me that it would be a curiosity in its way. No doubt 1 about 

 it, but being dovetailed (apropos of tails) into my theory, it must 

 have been so. Don't ask me to give up such a convenient 

 argument for making up my book. Non possumus. 



I believe, " I see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered 

 by Xatural Selection more and more aquatic in their structure 

 and habits, with larger and longer mouths, till a creature was 

 produced as monstrous as a whale." I repeat it, if I can get you 

 to swallow this as easily as my bear did his flies, well and good ; 

 if not, I can only say that it has all gone down with me and my 

 brother philosophers. True, this wonderful creed, as promulgated 

 in my first edition, having been ridiculed by the Rev. F. 0. 

 Morris in his " Difficulties of Darwinism," I have thought it 

 expedient to omit it from the next edition of. my modern 

 "Metamorphoses." but only as a suppressio veri, and^ro tempore* 



I believe all the time that this is in harmony with the whole 

 of the rest of my story-book, and as such no doubt you will not 

 consider it as a whit more ridiculous than ail the rest of it. 

 I leave it to you to strike the balance of absurdity, as you 

 consider it, between my title page and my " tail-piece." Have I 

 not Horace on my side, where he writes, Desinit in piscem mulier 

 formosa superne f 



I believe that, as elsewhere I make fishes go on land to become 

 land animals with tails, so I can make my land animal go into the 

 water to grow his tail. I suppose you will scarcely deny that if 



