THE LIZARD-BIRD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, 12 March 1914, Page 7

THE LIZARD-BIRD.

‘•A NEW CHAPTER OF EVOLUTION.” Some Jiope of finding a missing link between two animal kingdoms, the bird and the wingless quadruped, it* entertained by those now beginning a ■microscopic investigation of a part of the booty of the. Scott Antarctic expedition. A wonderful series of penquins’ ('gas, in every state of incuballot 1, was secured and was sent to Cambridge University. The work of inspection has just begun and is attended with no little excitement of the scientific sort. The Emperor Penquin, according to one theory, is the most primitive of all birds. It is probably a lizard-bird that has lost its teeth. It is true that one was once seen to raise its beak •Skywards and make what seemed to bp an effort to fly. But the wing is not a flying tool. It' is rather a sort of fin, or, it may be, a sort, of arm on the way to become a wing. The embryos in the egg generally reveal pages of history concealed in the grown creature, and those may disclose the relationship of the penquin to the fish or lizard, and a new chapter in Darwinian evolution be disclosed. This is the expectation.