Hyatt.] 148 [April 5, 



St. George Mivart in his Genesis of Species, have lately taken similar 

 views. The latter continually alludes to the sudden rise of species or 

 races, and gives an instance of the sudden appearance of .the black 

 shouldered peacock in a flock of common peacocks. This variety, 

 previously known in India as a separate species, speedily increased 

 to the extinction of the original form. Here, as St. George Mivart 

 points out, under different geographical influences, the same species 

 has suddenly arisen in India and in England. No slow changes 

 similar to those perpetually cited by Darwin and Wallace, no gradual 

 fading of one species into another, but a sudden evolution of a new, 

 distinct form. 



Mivart too states, that "the view here advocated, regards the 

 whole organic world as arising and going forward in one harmonious 

 development, similar to that which displays itself in the growth and 

 action of each separate individual organism. This apparently is the 

 key note of his book." This was the view advocated by the speaker 

 some four years previously, in the Memoirs of the Society, in a paper 

 written to establish the fact that all characteristics had arisen sud- 

 denly among the Ammonites and Nautili of past geographical epochs. 

 This paper was a short preliminary statement of facts observed, and 

 it did not excite his surprise that Mivart had overlooked it. He 

 could not, however, help wondering at the absolute silence preserved 

 with relation to the essay of Prof. Cope, of Philadelphia. This had 

 been issued at about the same time and independently, but advo- 

 cated nearly the same views as regarded the sudden production of 

 characteristics among the Reptiles, and must have been well known 

 to Prof. Huxley, with whom Mivart seems to have taken council. 

 This omission is by no means creditable to the author of a work writ- 

 ten to refute such books as Darwin is in the habit of producing, and 

 contrasts unfavorably with that writer's evident acquaintance with 

 the essay alluded to above. This is shown most by the manner in 

 which he is obliged to rest the proof of his assertion that species 

 arise suddenly, upon a number of isolated facts, whereas either Prof. 

 Cope's paper or the speaker's, especially the former, would have fur- 

 nished him with a number of reliable and serially connected illustra- 

 tions of the quick evolution of species. 



Dr. S. Kneeland presented to the Society specimens of 

 deep sea soundings, collected by Lieut. Breck off the Pacific 

 coast, in three thousand three hundred fathoms, samples of 



