54 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



and then they turn out the steaming flesh by 

 breaking the ball, while the skin and the 

 spines stick in a body to the hardened lump 

 of earth. Yet the creature which they so 

 unceremoniously devour is actually the eldest 

 scion of the great mammalian stock, whereof 

 all the reigning houses in Europe are, after 

 all, but younger branches. 



The insectivores, indeed, as Professor 

 Huxley has often pointed out, occupy the 

 central position among all placental mam- 

 mals — that is to say, among all mammals 

 higher than the pouched class of opossums 

 and kangaroos. Their brain is very small 

 and undeveloped, and their organs generally 

 are but little specialised. All the other com- 

 mon quadrupeds — the carnivores, the rodents, 

 the ungulates — have certain resemblances 

 towards them which they have not towards 

 one another. This shows that the hedge- 

 hogs, moles, and shrews, our representative 

 English insectivores, display as it were an 

 arrest of development — exhibit to us an early 



