PROOFS OF EVOLUTION. 
\7 
as examples of the multitudinous whole. It is 
well known that the baleen whale has no teeth, 
and no use for any; yet its embryo has a full set, 
which disappear before birth by absorption. The 
plain inference is that the whale has not always 
been a water-animal; that his ancestors had teeth 
and legs, and roamed through forest, swamp and 
marsh. In some whales, also, pelvic bones are 
found, and yet they have no hind legs. Such 
bones are mere rudiments of the former attach¬ 
ment of legs. Again, rudimentary hairs are found 
in the skin, being but fragments of the hairy coat 
their ancestors once wore, before they paddled 
their own canoes on the briny deep. The breathing- 
organs of the whale are modeled for air-breathing, 
not for water-breathing It would thus appear 
that our great oil-producer came first from the 
water, then acquired the structure of a quadruped, 
and finally went back again to his native deep. 
Why did he go back ? Will our theological friends 
say, “It was to swallow Jonah” ? 
The Python, also, has rudiments of legs; and 
the embryo of the calf has teeth which are 
absorbed before birth. The splint-bones of a 
horse’s foot, the turtle’s flipper, the dew-claw of 
dogs, the tails of birds, and the gill-arches of 
