Popular Science Lectures. 
2.—" PHASES OF ANIMAL LIFE, PAST AND PRESENT.' 
Delivered on Tuesday, June 12th, by f. J. Qtielck, B. Sc, Lond., 
Curator of the Museum. 
IS^pSSIHE lecturer began with a brief and general 
account of the classification of animals into 
their great groups, which were particularised 
as the main phases of past and present life, attention 
being drawn to the dominant classes and orders which 
characterised the various epochs in past ages. The 
evolutional pedigree of animals, under the form of a 
genealogical tree, was traced, determined by the struc- 
ture of the various types, and as confirmed by their 
development and embryological history, the transitional 
stages between the chief groups being briefly indicated 
and explained. A brief survey was taken of the chief 
features of the geological history of animals ; and the 
gradual increase in complexity of organisation from the 
early palaeozoic to modern times was insisted on as 
supporting the derivation of the higher forms from the 
lower by a process of natural selection, by which the 
fittest for survival, out of a continuously varying series, 
under varying conditions of environment, were progres- 
sively modified. The evolution of the modern horse 
from its five-toed ancestors was briefly stated as a 
perfect instance of such modification, the proofs of which, 
based on every intermediate condition as found in strata 
in the Old and New Worlds, are indisputable. The 
appearance of man in the geological series was briefly 
referred to, the scarcity of his remains* being explained 
