NATURE STUDIES 



FOUND LINKS. 



BY DR. ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E., F.L.S. 



As the question of "Missing Links" has excited a 

 considerable amount of attention, a few papers on the 

 general aspects of the beings that link together dis- 

 tinct groups of animals, may prove interesting and 

 instructive to reflective minds. It is very necessary 

 that in the first place we should remember the special 

 form which the rational demand for such " links" 

 should take. There exists no necessity or demand 

 ^whatever for any theoretical link, either between man 

 -and any existing ape, or between man and any extinct 

 ape. Such a demand is simply the outcome of an 

 ignorance both of natural history at large, and of 

 -evolution also ; and, as often as not, such ignorance is 

 of the most prejudiced type. That which the evolu- 

 lutionist and naturalist desire to know, is the nature 

 of the forms which, on the theory of " development," 

 must have connected the human root-stock with the 

 pre-human root. The connexion, or "link," cannot 

 be sought in the existing world. It must be obtained, 

 if ever it comes to light at all, from the world of fossil 

 life, and from the stores of life-relics which the geo- 

 logist is year by year adding to our stores of know- 

 ledge. It is true that nature is not bound to furnish 

 us with ' ' links " because we see a logical necessity for 



