RESULTS OF PAL^EONTOLOGlCAL RESEARCH S3 



period ' almost as fully typified and as sharply 

 defined as to-day, particularly also such as were of 

 unusual size or of peculiar travelling powers or habits 

 of life, such as Cetacese (whales) Sirens (sea-cows) 

 Bats, etc/ 1 



Summarizing, J. Bumuller says 3 e . . . We have there- 

 fore the remarkable fact that the placental Mammalia, 

 which appeared first in the Tertiary period (see remark 

 above, p. 29), is already split into all the ten orders in 

 the oldest section of that period, viz. the Eocene. . . / 

 Where are the predecessors of these orders ? Where are 

 the transitional forms between them and the Marsupials 

 which were there already in the Trias ? 



Deduction from 2 : Of a process of separation 

 of the families and classes of the Invertebrates from 

 each other, the higher from the lower, we know 

 nothing since they appear contemporaneously as 

 sharply separated in the Cambrian formation. 



That the higher classes, and even many orders of 

 the Vertebrates, have been evolved from the lower ones 

 is, according to the actual results of investigation, in 

 no single case other than probable. A single apparent 

 exception here is that of the Birds. Archaeopteryx 

 was obviously a bird : the entire construction of the 

 skeleton, the so characteristic form of the front and 

 rear limbs (wings and legs), the possession of feathers, 

 of which no reptile shows the slightest trace, separates 



1 Steinmann : Die Geologischen Grundlagen der Abstammungslehre, 

 p. 233. 



2 J. Bumuller : Die Entiuicklungstheorie und der Mensch, p. 76. 



