closely-linking

Updated: April 30, 2025

Hence we ought not to expect at the present time to meet with numerous transitional varieties in each region, though they must have existed there, and may be embedded there in a fossil condition. But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.

Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Hence we ought not to expect at the present time to meet with numerous transitional varieties in each region, though they must have existed there, and may be embedded there in a fossil condition. But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.

Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection : or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (2nd edition)

Hence we ought not to expect at the present time to meet with numerous transitional varieties in each region, though they must have existed there, and may be embedded there in a fossil condition. But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.

Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition