H 



to 

 the 



ist, 



■) 



of 



ri 



a 



Ch. XXXV.l FIEST xiPPEARlXCE OF NEW SPECIES. 



2G9 



a true indication of wliat lias been and will be^ I assumed tliat 

 the' coming in of new species must be going- on at about the 

 same rate as the dying out of old ones ; and I therefore felt 

 myself called upon to explain how the birth of new species 

 could be always in progress^ and yet the botanist and zoolo- 

 gist remain wholly unconscious of the occurrence of events 



r 



SO wonderful^ and to them of such transcendent interest, 



m 



establishing the first appearance of a neiv 



mm 



DifficiiUy i 

 species. — Assi 



time to time to fill up the gaps to which the never-ceasing 



_ 3S of the animate and inanimate world must give rise^ 

 I enquired what kind of evidence we had a right to expect 



of the 



origin 



forms 



of animals and plants in the 

 course of the last twenty or thirty centuries. 

 have been as conscious of the fact as we are of the lesseninrr 



Ought we to 



of 



numbers 



ticular species? It was 



occasional extermination of par- 

 Dbviously, I remarked, more easy 



numei 



given district, had ceased to be, than that some other which 

 did not pre-exist had made its appearance 



assnmm 



that single stocks only of each animal and plant are origin- 

 ally created, and that individuals of new species do not sud- 

 denly start up in many different places at once. The latter 

 hypothesis had already been considered by Linneeus, and pro- 

 nounced by him to be unphilosophical because quite unneces- 

 sary, since,' as he observed, every animal or plant, even those 

 which increase slowly, are capable in twenty or thirty o-ene- 

 rations of stocking a large part of the whole globe with their 

 descendants. 



So imperfect has the science of Natural History remained 



memory 



animals 

 many 



'New 



and often conspicuous species are annually discovered in 

 parts of the old continent, long inhabited by the most civi- 

 lised^ nations. Conscious, therefore, of the limited extent of 

 our information, we always infer, when such discoveries are 



made 



miirrated 



^ 



