xxviii STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



lemon trees is the middle leaflet of some ancestral form with three 

 leaflets, like that of Citrus Trifoliata} yet the one leaflet persists 

 through millions of generations without reversions. In India, in 

 my researches on the oranges and lemons, I sowed seeds of all 

 kinds of Citrus, and only -^few seedlings gave any indication in 

 their Jirst leaves of having descended from a trifoliate ancestor.^ 



Evolutionists do not believe that modern birds evolved from 

 the extinct Pterodactyle form. Yet what is more easy than for a 

 pterodactyle wing-membrane to grow Aaz'r, like other parts of the 

 body ; and for this to become exaggerated into feather-like hairs, 

 and so on ; then for the wing-membrane to contract, perhaps even in 

 one generation, so as to envelop the arm and finger-bones, while the 

 feathers increased in size, and became the real flying apparatus ? 



All this seems certainly preposterous and fanciful to a person 

 who may have looked upon monstrosities as ungodly phenomena, 

 but as they do occur now, there is no reason to suppose they did 

 not occur in past ages. 



The animal congenitally is given a certain bodily structure 

 whether normal or abnormal. 



He, that is, his nerve-centres, must make the best of it, if he is 

 to live at all. He has, moreover, to regulate his actions and habits 

 by the growing structure of which he is possessed, until they 

 become established by the completion of that growth in adult age. 

 He is the sport of inheritance and surroundings. Inheritance 

 tends to keep him on certain more or less fixed lines, but it does 

 not at all follow that circumstances may not change his structure 

 to a /arge extent in one birth, so as to shunt his descendants on to 

 a new line. 



We know that all mammals are allied, for if they were not, 



' See Gardeners' Chronicle of i8th November 1893, p. 625. 

 ^ See Oranges and Lemons of India and Ceylon, pi. 246. 



