ORGANIC E VOL UTION. 2 1 



time to perceive this distinction between funda- 

 mental and superficial resemblances. I remember 

 once reading a very comical disquisition in one 

 of Buffon's works on the question as to whether 

 or not a crocodile was to be classified as an 

 insect ; and the instructive feature in the disquisi- 

 tion was this, that although a crocodile differs 

 from an insect as regards every conceivable parti- 

 cular of its internal anatomy, no allusion at all 

 is made to this fact, while the whole discussion 

 is made to turn on the hardness of the external 

 casing of a crocodile resembling the hardness of 

 the external casing of a beetle ; and when at 

 last Buffon decides that, on the whole, a crocodile 

 had better not be classified as an insect, the 

 only reason given is, that as a crocodile is so 

 very large an animal, it would make "altogether 

 too terrible an insect." 



But now, when at last it came to be recognised 

 that internal anatomy rather than external 



