where monkeys occupy in large societies mango groves around 
villages, the traces of casualties among them are so rarely seen, 
that the simple Hindoo believes that they bury their dead by 
night. 
It is increasingly felt that our belief in the origin of primeval 
man must depend on the views that may be eventually accepted as 
to the genesis of species generally, and more light is thrown on this 
question by the study of the higher forms of life, as for example, 
that of the mammalia (to which I propose, in this address, to 
conhne my remarks) than by that of lower organisms, because, 
as geology shows us, the former have been much less persistent 
and subject to change than the latter. For example, no living 
species of quadruped has been discovered as existing in Miocene 
times, while of the Miocene testacea a considerable per centage 
are absolutely identical with existing mollusks. 
A few years since, the absence of any adequate number of 
connecting links between extinct and recent mammals, was 
repeatedly urged as a grave objection against the evolution theory ; 
and the only reply that could then be given was, that the geological 
record was very imperfect, and had received but little thorough 
investigation. The progress of discovery has, however, of late 
years brought to light a vast quantity of fresh evidence, and this 
evidence is so distinctly in favour of evolution, that evolutionists 
need no longer adopt their former apologetic tone, but can 
now maintain that that which was formerly a difficulty in their 
way, is rapidly becoming one of the strongest supports of the 
theory. 
It is nevertheless true, that geology can never furnish us with 
anything but the most imperfect collection of the remains of land- 
inhabiting animals. By far the greater part of the strata composing 
the accessible portion of the crust of the earth is of marine origin, 
much of it having been deposited at a distance from land ; while of 
deposits representing old land surfaces, which may have been the 
home of tho terrestrial mammalia, the geological record reveals lo 
us next to nothing. The preservation of fossils is almost entirely 
due to their having become buried during the formation of 
