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form or habit. Although the minuteness into which these re- 

 searches lead will elicit the discovery of many curious analogies, 

 and open a wide field for ingenious speculations, yet they will not 

 in themselves contribute towards the solution of the great problem 

 of a connected series of beings. In some instances we may ob- 

 serve that the external form undergoes rapid and scarcely con- 

 nected changes, while the order and relative importance of the 

 several functions is but slightly varied. In others, the functions 

 are observed to undergo gradual but ultimately important muta- 

 tions, while the form remains comparatively unchanged. Hence 

 it is to comparative anatomy, and its companion physiology, that 

 we must look for the most important improvements and discover- 

 ies in zoological science, The great chain of being lies at present 

 in an apparently confused heap ; so that links which may possibly 

 be far apart, seem to our partial and imperfect view, intimately 

 connected if not in immediate contact. 



FINIb 



