THE EVIDENCE FROM MISSING LINKS. 



153 



with the even-toed division. Passing to the whales and their kin, 

 we find the extinct Zeuglodon with its well-developed teeth a feature 

 unusual in living whales appearing to connect the whale tribe with 

 the seals and their 

 allies. Similarly, 

 the curious Anoplo- 

 therium (Fig. 73) of 

 the Eocene Tertiary 

 deposits appears to 

 connect the swine 

 race with the true 

 cud-chewers or Ru- 

 minants, just as the 

 Pal&otherium (Fig. 



FIG. 72. PAL^EOTHERIUM (RESTORED). 



72) itself one of 

 the first animals 

 whose remains were disinterred from Montmartre connects the pigs 

 and tapirs with the apparently far-removed rhinoceros. The case for 

 the existence of " missing links," wherewith the at present distinct 

 orders and sub-orders of quadrupeds may be connected, would thus 

 seem to be very strong. There would appear to be more than 

 sufficient cause to account for 'the hopeful spirit of the evolutionist, 

 whose scientific prophecy, that philosophic research into the nature 

 of fossil organisms begun by Cuvier, in the now classical quarries of 

 Montmartre is destined to powerfully aid his cause, seems likely to 

 be realised. When it lies in the power of the naturalist to point, as 

 well he may, with pride, to the perfect series of forms and missing 

 links which connect the one- 

 toed horse of to-day with the 

 curious three, four, and five- 

 toed steeds of the past, one 

 may overlook the jubilant tone 

 of the evolutionist in the more 

 silent and deeper satisfaction 

 with which mankind at large is 

 given to welcome the demon- 

 stration of a great truth. It is FIG. 73. RESTORATION OF ANOPLOTHERIUM. 



of such a demonstration that 



Huxley writes : " On the evidence of palaeontology, the evolution 

 of many existing forms of animal life from their predecessors is no 

 longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact ; it is only," he adds, 

 " the nature of the physiological factors to which that evolution is 

 due which is still open to discussion." 



But not merely in the highest class of the animal world have 

 " intermediate forms " been discovered. The case for evolution 



