CHAPTEK IV. 
ADAPTATION OF STRUCTURE TO HABITS. 
“ Nature to them, without profusion, kind, 
The proper organs, proper power assigned ; 
Each seeming want compensated of course, 
There with degrees of swiftness, there of force ; 
All in exact proportion to their state, 
Nothing to add and nothing to abate.” 
Pope. 
A very clever man, whose name I have, however, 
unfortunately forgotten, gave me the following simple 
explanation how the Swan came on this earth of ours :— 
“ The Creator,” said he, “ first formed the Goose as the 
original primaeval aquatic bird; it swam into deep water, 
and sought to feed at the bottom, but was unable to 
reach far enough down, though stretching its neck to 
the utmost. It came to pass, however, that at last the 
neck elongated, and the body grew larger: thus the 
Goose by degrees became a Swan!” 
This astute interpreter of the inexplicable activity of 
Nature must have had in his mind’s eye a good old time, 
—a time when, in the transformation of an animal, the 
matter of an extra vertebra or so was not regarded as of 
much importance. Every impartial person must at once, 
however, regard him as an unreflecting idiot; for 
according to his explanation everyone must acknowledge 
that the existence of the relative forms of birds can be 
