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length, after the slaughter of more than as many hundreds of 

 millions of them, a bond fide cock and hen were hatched, the 

 product of the extermination of innumerable ancestors. ' * Further 

 this deponent sayeth not," except that I cannot tell you of what 

 so-called species it was may be an eagle, or may be a dove. 

 "A happy thought!" I rather incline to think that it must have 

 been the latter, as it would be somewhat awkward for a bird of 

 prey to come into being and to find no prey for it to prey on. 

 It would be, as it were, a sort of lucus a non lucendo, would it 

 not? No doubt about it. At all events the " new and peculiar 

 line of life " was secured. " All's well that ends well ;" is'nt it ? 



I believe that after this, "many divergent forms spread 

 rapidly." It is indeed true that I have before now laid it down, 

 and that over and over again, that tl Natural Selection always 

 acts very slowly" but if I cannot say a little of anything where 

 should I be ? I tell you that when once my first bird came out, 

 I cannot say whether " ab ovo " or not, all the tens of thousands 

 of species there are now soon began to fly about. Such were 

 their " plastic tendencies." How pretty! 



I believe that all this "believing" is a most excellent 

 substitute for proof. Hodge's razors were made to u sell," not 

 to " cut," you know, and I think his a very good, an extremely 

 good, example to follow. No doubt in the process of bird- 

 making, many unusual forms were totally lost, and that by 

 myriads on myriads, to say nothing of the failure of countless 

 experiments wasted in the endeavour to connect the different 

 orders, genera, and species. The ' 4 struggle for life " you see 

 was too much for them, though not for me, and so it came to 

 pass that there is such a vast hiatus between birds and the 

 vertebrated animals, as also the separation between all the 

 families of birds themselves. And why not ? 



I believe that Cuvier only showed his ignorance in com- 

 parison with .me when he laid it down as to " every organised 

 being " that all their parts " correspond," and that " none of these 

 parts can change without the whole changing" Such a dictum I 

 have sense enough to see must be fatal to my whole theory, and 

 will tumble any house of cards to the ground. Ergo, he must 



