i$8 CHAPTERS ON EVOLUTION. 



frequent fact, hereafter to be noted, that, despite the Linnaean aphorism 

 Natura non facit saltum, Nature may and sometimes does take not 

 merely a jump, but a running leap from one species to another. 

 What would be thought of the history of the Ancon or Otter sheep, 

 which about the close of last century was born of an ordinary ewe 

 as the progeny of an equally commonplace male parent ; both, along 

 with fourteen other ewes, having been the property of a certain Seth 

 Wright, a Massachusetts farmer? This Ancon sheep differed most 

 materially from its parents and from the ovine race at large, in possess- 

 ing a large body and proportionally short legs. For sundry reason s, con- 

 nected with the over-lively habits of his long-legged sheep in leaping 

 over their fences, Wright from this one Ancon sheep, in due time, bred 

 a whole flock of pure Otter sheep ; the breed being allowed to die out 

 on the introduction of the Merino sheep. Presuming that, in ignorance 

 of its true and sudden origin, the history of the Ancon breed had been 

 made the subject of biological speculation, how would the demand 

 for " missing links," and the evolutionist's inability to reply to the 

 demand, have been construed ? Simply as against the transmutation 

 of the sheep species or race, and as against the origin of the Ancon 

 by the variation and modification of the ordinary sheep. And yet 

 the Ancon race had certainly its beginning in the sudden modification 

 of an existing race such as utterly precluded the possibility of any 

 " connecting links " having been developed or required. 



Such considerations, we may submit, will tend to weaken the rele- 

 vancy of the demand for "missing links " and transitional forms. But it 

 may be worth our while to hear a little further testimony on the same 

 point. Taking Mr. Darwin's own examples, we find him citing the 

 instance of a journey from north to south, over a great continent, 

 in the course of which we meet with closely related or representative 

 species, which represent each other in their respective regions or 

 habitats. Such species are found to meet and interlock, and there- 

 after, as our journey proceeds, one species is found to become less 

 frequent, until it is completely replaced by the other. Even in the 

 common or middle region where these two species intermingle, the 

 members of the one group are as absolutely distinct from the other, 

 as if specimens had been selected for comparison from the head- 

 quarters of each species. Yet, says Mr. Darwin, " by my theory, these 

 altered species are descended from a common parent ; " each in the 

 process of descent having exterminated the parent species and also 

 the transitional forms. Once again leaving the extinct and fossil 

 species out of consideration for the present the question crops up, 

 why do the species not intermingle in the middle region, with inter- 

 mediate conditions of life ? Here geology steps in to reconcile the 

 discrepancy. Because your continent is continuous from north to 

 south to-day, it is not lawful to infer that this continuity of land- 



