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Cervus Eldi. Cervus mantchuricus. Cervus paludosus, colours of. Cervus strongyloceros. Cervus virginianus, horns of, in course of modification. Ceryle, male black-belted in some species of. Cetacea, nakedness of. Ceylon, frequent absence of beard in the natives of. Chaffinch, proportion of the sexes in the; courtship of the. Chaffinches, new mates found by.
For an organ can only be of advantage when it performs its functions; and on the first of the 10,000 stages of development the extremity can not perform its functions. Just think of the cetacea! Of the hind extremity, only its carrier, the pelvis, has been developed; and even this is only represented by the two hip-bones, hanging in the flesh.
The same moral is inculcated by the study of every other order of Tertiary monodelphous Mammalia. Each of these orders is represented in the Miocene epoch: the Eocene formation, as I have already said, contains Cheiroptera, Insectivora, Rodentia, Ungulata, Carnivora, and Cetacea.
Sub-typical Ferae . . . Claws retractile; carnivorous. Natatorial Cetacea. . Pre-eminently aquatic; feet very short. Suctorial Glires . . Muzzle lengthened and pointed. Rasorial Ungulata . Crests and other processes on the head. He then takes the quadrumana, and places it in the following arrangement:
Almost the only living things which I saw were some walruses on the drift-floes: but very few compared with the number which I expected. It was clear to me that some inconceivable catastrophe had overtaken the island during the summer, destroying all life about it, except some few of the amphibia, cetacea, and crustacea.
Thus, it is quite conceivable that a pleurodont lizard might have arisen in Madagascar in perfect independence of the similarly-formed American lacertilia: just as certain teeth of carnivorous and insectivorous marsupial animals have been seen most closely to resemble those of carnivorous and insectivorous placental beasts; just as, again, the paddles of the Cetacea resemble, in the fact of a multiplication in the number of the phalanges, the many-jointed feet of extinct marine reptiles, and as the beak of the cuttle-fish or of the tadpole resembles that of birds.
Objections to sudden changes. Labyrinthodont. Potto. Cetacea. As to origin of bird's wing. Tendrils of climbing plants. Animals once supposed to be connecting links. Early specialization of structure. Macrauchenia. Glyptodon. Sabre-toothed tiger. Conclusion.
It is supposed to have lived in shallow seas and estuaries, and to have breathed air like the Ichthyosaur and our modern cetacea. One specimen of Ichthyosaurus platydon, from the Lias at Lyme, now in the British Museum, must have belonged to an animal more than 24 feet in length; and there are species of Plesiosaurus which measure from 18 to 20 feet in length.
Even the comparatively scanty Eocene fauna yields examples of the orders Cheiroptera, Insectivora, Rodentia, and Perissodactyla; of Artiodactyla under both the Ruminant and the Porcine modifications; of Caranivora, Cetacea, and Marsupialia.
Gladstone affirms, "are given to us in Genesis in the order of succession in which they are also given by the latest geological authorities." I must venture to demur to this statement. Moreover, I pointed out that as these Cetacea and Sirenia are certainly modified land animals, their existence implies the antecedent existence of land mammals.
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