Kitchen Parker on Mammalian Descent 285 



KITCHEN PARKER ON MAMMALIAN DESCENT. 



The following passages — which are from the first chapter 

 of the late Professor Kitchen Parker's lectures on Mammalian 

 Descent — may be read in not unsuitable connection with 

 those just given. 



" Brief as is the title I have given to the present Course 

 of Lectures, it contains enough in two words to give alarm 

 to cautious and timid minds. 



" I need hardly say that no harm is intended by it ; and I 

 believe that no harm will happen to the mind of any one who 

 will listen to me whilst I bring forward some of the ' new 

 things * of Biology. 



" If in human society the toe of the peasant now and then 

 galls the kibe of the courtier, so in this class the toe of the 

 irrational beast treads, in some cases, very close upon the 

 heel of rational man. It is worthy of remark that this keeper 

 of the mammals — himself a mammal — is, in size, a good 

 practical mean between the extremes. On one hand we have 

 'the smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,' and on 

 the other the unwieldy whale — large as an island. Taking 

 the class as a whole, as to intelligence, we have ' the ex- 

 tremity of both ends ' — man at one end, and the frog-witted 

 Duckbill at the other. 



" The mammalian class is, indeed, a most motley assem- 

 blage, whether we consider their form, their size, or their 

 intelligence, for the wars of time have sadly thinned the ranks 

 of regiment after regiment. Nor is the Darwinian in fault, if, 

 when the roll-call is made, so few are found to respond to it. 

 Let those who clamour for connecting links lay this to heart ; 

 myriads upon myriads of mammals have perished in the 

 struggle for life ; time has buried them. ' Time, that old 

 clocksetter, that bald sexton, time,' has much to answer for ; 

 he has not only thrown the mould over the links of the chain 

 of types, but — to change the image — he has buried thousands 

 of complete family trees, and the geological miner has only 

 unearthed a broken twig here and there. 



