182 



Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



there is between the intellectuality of a savage and that of a man 

 possessing brilliant talents. However, it is at once conceded that the 

 infant chimpanzee can only be trained into a bright ape, while the 

 child of a Digger Indian can be educated to the average capacities oi 

 mankind. In the human brain there are qualities and possibilities 

 not vouchsafed to the cerebral " centers" of inferior animals. Man's 

 excellencies are most pronounced in his intellectual endowments. 



Naturalists have arranged animals into groups for the convenience 

 arising from classification, hence we have orders, families, genera and 

 species ; but from beginning to end — from the lowest to the highest — 

 an unbroken kinship runs, the tendency in the ascent being to display 

 varieties. The gnu, for example, combines bovine and equine features, 

 3'et so many characteristics of another kind of animals, that it is 

 classed as an antelope. 



If the most varied peculiarities of any group of animals be sought, 

 individuals will be found that closely resemble the rarer form presented 

 by strange representations in allied groups. There is not a marked 

 difference between the lowest eagle and the highest vulture; between 

 certain varieties of hawks and owls; between some elks and some oxen ; 

 between the hunting cheetah and felines on the one side, and canines 

 on the other. There is not a wonderful difference between badgers 

 and bears, seals and whales, some fish and some reptiles, and in a 

 fossil state we find the remains of birds that had teeth, and 

 many reptilian features. The cerebral hemispheres of ancient saurian 

 birds were not larger than those of turtles. The babyroussa or pig- 

 deer of Sumatra, has such mixed features that it is difficult to give the 

 creature its proper place in any well defined order. The descent from 

 the elephant to the tapir should cover an intervening species that re- 

 sembles both, yet differs from either, and such does exist in a fossil 

 state. The horse then comes along with its prolonged upper lip and 

 oddity as to toe; and then swine with their enormous snouts and even 

 toes, though a "mule-footed" pig is occasionallj* seen, as well as a rare 

 specimen with five digits. 



If it were possible to restore transitional forms that have dropped 

 out of line, there would be little difficult}^ in following the chain of 

 ascent, link by link. 



The infinite variety in form and function to be considered while 

 estimating the changes which have taken place in the history of organic 

 life, must be ascribed to the progressive tendencies of neural matter. 

 In a given habitat, a humble creature n3eds spines or scutes to protect 

 itself from enemies ; and the nervous system, through its influence on 



