Xect. II.] MAMMALIAN ADVANCE. 31 



that suggested a greater nearness of this little delver to 

 the great Water-Mole, the Ornithorhynchus of Australia, 

 than had been imagined. Proof is not wanting, now, 

 that some of the lower Eutheria, or high beasts, rose 

 rapidly from the Prototheria, without utilising the Meta- 

 therian or intermediate condition. They did not wait 

 to become Marsupials, but ran up on to the top platform 

 before they attained the adult condition. The Meta- 

 theria — the pouch-bearers — did, and do still, utilize an 

 intermediate morphological stage of development, but 

 .some of the Insectivora may have shot past them, and 

 grown into the root-stocks of the existing noble beasts. 



The Primary Edentata also may have shot up in a 

 similar manner ; but their culmination is very low, at 

 its highest, as compared with the culmination of the 

 Insectivora ; yet I imagine them to have had abbreviated 

 stages in their pre-natal transformation. 



The registers we have extracted from the growing 

 microcosm have enabled us to make these deductions. 

 These writings may be likened to Palimpsests, written in 

 many texts, one over the other ; the writing, however, 

 was not made by fallible scribes, but by infallible 

 morphological law. This witness is true : and truth so 

 attested may be followed by anyone, little fearing where 

 it will lead him. I have spoken of the common Mole ; I 

 must speak of him again, in one of my lectures on the 

 Insectivora. I will now speak of the Ornithorhynchus 

 itself — the great Water-Mole. 



