THE QUINARY SYSTEM. xll 
mind, that the cr eat ares were in a manner their own creators.” * 
The doctrine of types, passage, and aberration indeed, seems only 
another version of the visions of Epicurus, Robinet, Darwin, and 
Lamarck ; for in the Quinary system we find the very language 
of the latter theorists, in talking of transitions of one group into 
another, and of a species ‘‘ leading round,” or filling up a chasm, 
and forming a link or passage between two groups.f The 
weakness” it is said ‘‘ of the bill and of the legs and feet of the 
Caprimulgus still keeps it at some distance from the owls, in which 
the same members are comparatively strong ; while the wide gape 
of its mouth serves to divide the families still farther. A connecting 
link has been however supplied by an Australasian group, the 
Podargus of M. Cuvier, which harmonizes these discrepant cha- 
racters.”:!: The word stilly though I am well convinced it was 
not so meant by the author, has no obvious meaning, unless it 
refer to a time when the Caprimulgus may make a transi- 
tion or progress to the owl. That this is not, as I have heard 
alleged in answer, a mere figurative mode of expression, such as 
when we say, America approaches Asia at Behring’s Straits,” 
appears evident from the whole tone of the system. We are told, 
for example, that “ the nearest approach of the mammalia to the 
birds exists, according to MacLeay, among the glires, which make 
several attempts^ as it were, to attain the structure of the feathered 
class as plain, strong, and precise terms, as Darwin or Lamarck 
himself could have used in talking of a jerboa fDypus^ Gmelin) 
trying to convert its legs into wings, or a porcupine (Hystrix^ 
Brisson) endeavouring to barb its quills with feathers. The 
saving clause, “ as it were,” indeed shows that the author was 
aware of his words being objectionable. Unless the Creator be 
discarded altogether, in what way are we to understand this 
doctrine ? The language used can oidy be reasonably explained 
upon the theory of animals making ‘‘ progress,” or passing by 
their own efforts to greater development in their organs ; the 
imperfect ones, for example, in the aberrant groups, becoming 
by such efforts more typical^ losing some of their legs if they 
* Kirby and Spence, hit. iii. 173. 
i' See Mag. of Nat. Hist. i. 330 ; and Zool. Jour, passim. 
f; Linn. Tr. xiv. p. 401. § Zool. Jour. iv. 416. 
