436 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



We may also add, that knowing' the food of existing' species of the same 

 genera, we may safely infer that the waters swarmed with infusoria and 

 animals of soft parts that could not be preserved to us, and that in those 

 early seas there was a crowded population from the first period of palaeozoic 

 life. 



It may be said that the Echinoderm of the silurian sea is a higher zoo- 

 phyte than the Paleeotrochus of the Taconic, and that the latter may be the 

 progenitor of the former. 



We might admit the former part of this proposition and safely deny the 

 the latter. The Darwinians must show the intervening and connecting 

 links in their scale of development, or we mi;st deny the assumption. 



Moreover, we can assert that from chemical analysis, and from micro- 

 scopical examination of their exuviae, the individuals of the primordial fauna 

 were as perfect and as elevated in the scale of existence as any indi- 

 viduals of similar genera of the present time. 



The struggle for existence theory, then, being set aside, what is the 

 hypothesis we would introduce in relation to species ? Before proceeding 

 let us give a definition of species, which will meet our views of the subject 

 under discussion. By species we understand anatomical and physiological 

 differences between individuals apparently similar in their characteristics, 

 which are capable of being triansmitted through successive generations to 

 their posterity. These different characteristics, oft6n very minute, are 

 manifested by special functions. 



A five-finger man we should not consider a new species of the genus 

 homo, although the anatomical features of the digitals are essentially dif- 

 ferent from the normal hand, because the extra member appears to be use- 

 less, and may be dispensed with, without injury to the possessor. Neither 

 would we consider mere color a foundation for species, unless it can be 

 shown that some new or peculiar function is the accompaniment of it. The 

 Ethiop is a mere variety of the human family. 



So, too, of the lower animals. Take the gallinaceous, for example. A 

 barn yard full of five-toe fowls would not make the beginning, of a new 

 species, unless it can be shown that the extra member has a specific use, 

 or that^the fowl had other and peculiar powers in consequence of it. 



The whole race of barnyard fowls, from the little strutting bantam to 

 the overgrown shanghai, we should consider but mere varieties of the spe- 

 cies gallus, very obviously and naturally the result of the promiscuous con- 

 cubinage of the male with his harem. 



The crow and raven would come nearer marking our difference of spe- 

 cies, for though the two are in plumage, and anatomical structure similar, 

 yet they have instincts which are unlike. Structurally, a small raven 

 might be called a large crow, or a large crow a small raven. The raven 

 lives upon the borders of civilization; the crow is the scavenger of culti- 

 vated fields, a dweller among men. They never commingle. A crow is a 

 lone bird among ravens, and the raven among crows. From the earliest 

 history of our country they were diflerent birds, so that the crow is not the 

 semi-domesticated raven. 



If we knew the economical functions which the lower animals perfoi'm, 



