230 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. [November 



variations can be preserved and the parental type must be most 

 favorable otherwise it would not exist 



When birds, or rather small bird-like, feathered reptiles, began to fly 

 there were no other flying vertebrates, and, as a consequence, the 

 struggle for existence amongst those forms would not be so keen as it 

 now is, and therefore variations though perhaps not occurring more 

 frequently than at present, would certainly have a better chance of 

 being preserved. With reference to the so-called fixity of species it 

 may not be out of place to mention that ornithologists have till quite 

 recently recognised two species of Goldfinch as occurring, one in 

 England (Cardelis eiegansj, and the other in India (C. Himalayansis). 

 If the distinctive characters of species, generally recognised by ornith- 

 ologists, are worth anything at all, if, in fact, the word species has any 

 .meaning, then the Indian and English Goldfinches belong to distinct 

 species. But the researches of Seebohm have shewn that there exists 

 a series of transitional forms w'hose intermediate stages make it 

 impossible to say wdiether the central form belongs to one or the other 

 species. In other words, a traveller whose sole object was the study 

 of Goldfinches, setting out from the Himalayas northward across 

 Siberia, then bending westward through Russia and Germany to 

 England would be unable to say at what part of his journey the 

 Himalayan species ended or the English one began. Anyone who 

 wishes to verify this statement has onl)^ to go to South Kensington 

 Natural History ]\Iuseum and see for himself the various intermediate 

 links which are beautifully arranged in a case in the great hall. The 

 "fixity of species" man, says that the earlier naturalists had here 

 made a mistake; that the tAvo were simply local varieties of one 

 species. Arguing by analogy he would tell us the Ostrich and the 

 Humming Bird are local varieties of one species if we could produce, 

 to a hair, the intermediate links wdiich a perfect knowledge of the life 

 of past geological epochs w^ould supply, and with his answer I quite 

 agree, but what about the fixity of species ? 



Perhaps for beginners the most serious objection to the assertion 

 that a bird is merely a feathered reptile, is due to the absence of any 

 transitional form, and to the fact that, so far as he can see, all birds 

 are birds, and as far as history goes birds are now Vvdiat they have ever 

 been. To get a true knowledge of the origin of birds he must go back 

 to pre-historic times and search amongst the fossil forms, when he 



