Ixii THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



better fitted by natural selection to browse without their aid ; whereas, in the calf, the 

 teeth have been left untouched by selection or disuse, and, on the principle of inheri- 

 tance at corresponding ages, have been iaherited from a remote period to the present 

 day. On the view of each organic being, with all its separate parts, having been 

 specially created, how utterly inexplicable it is that organs bearing the plain stamp of 

 inutility, such as the teeth in the embryonic calf, or the shrivelled wings under the 

 soldered wing-covers of many beetles, should so frequently occur ! Nature may be 

 said to have taken pains to reveal her scheme of modification by means of rudimen- 

 tary organs, embryological, and homological sti'uctures, but we wilfully will not 

 understand the scheme." 



We will finally quote the very noble words with which Darwin concludes this 

 volume : " There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been 

 originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or into one ; and that, while this 

 planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a 

 beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being 

 evolved." 



HISTORY OF ZOOLOGY. 



Zoology as a descriptive science dates from the time of Linnfeus, the father 

 of natural history, but as a well-grounded science it is scarcely older than 1839, 

 the date of Schwann's work on the cell, and the period of the manufacture and wide- 

 spread use of good compound microscopes. After the descriptive era of Linnaeus 

 and his successors, arose the era of comparative anatomy and paleontology, twin branches 

 of biology, engrafted by Cuvier on the tree of zoological knowledge, which was planted, 

 so to speak, by Linnaeus. Then arose the branches of histology, embryology, and gen- 

 eral morphology. 



The predecessors of Linnaeus, or Carl von Linn6, were Malphigi, Leeuwenhoek, 

 Swammerdam, and Redi, who flourished before Linnaeus was born (1707). Before the 

 birth of Linnfeus, also, there was a general scientific renaissance, which resulted in the 

 foundation of academies of science ; the oldest German scientific society being the 

 Academia Naturae Curiosorum, founded at Halle in 1652. Ten years later (1662), 

 the Royal Society of London was founded. In France, Richelieu founded, as early as 

 1633, the Academic Franpaise for the promotion of the French language and litera^ 

 ture ; in the reign of Louis XIV. the Academie des Sciences was founded ; its first 

 volume of works bears the imprint Paris, 1671. Three other academies were estab- 

 lished in Paris, and the five were united under the name of the Institute Fran9ais. 

 Then followed the founding of the scientific societies and academies of Berlin (1700), 

 Upsala (1720), St. Petersburg (1725), Stockholm (1739), Copenhagen (1748), and 

 Bologna, whose Commentaries first appeared in 1731. 



The history of zoology may be roughly divided into several periods : — 



1. Period of systematic zoology. — While it should not be forgotten that Aristotle 

 gave the name Mollusca to the group still bearing that name, no naturalist of mark 

 arose until Linnseus was born. In England, Linnaeus was preceded by Ray, but bi- 

 nomial nomenclature and the first genuine classification of animals dates back to the 

 Systema Naturae, the tenth edition of which appeared in 1758. As the result of his 

 influence, his own pupils, and also the German traveller and naturalist Pallas, did 

 much to advance zoo-geography; while the anatomists and physiologists of this period 

 were Camper, Spallanzani, Wolff, Hunter, and Vicq d'Azyr, the last-mentioned author 

 being the first to propose the term ' comparative anatomy.' 



