THE DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMAL LIFE. 97 



existing living forms ; and all speculations hitherto 

 made upon the subject of the inter-relationship of the 

 lowest forms of animal life leave us tnuch in the 

 position of the owl described in one of Mr. Froude's 

 essays, who spent his life in sublime meditation on 

 the (to him) insoluble problem, " Whether in the 

 Beginning the Owl first came from the ^^^, or the 

 Egg from the Owl." 



