SPARE HALF HOURS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1933, 7 December 1888, Page 35

SPARE HALF HOURS.

By F. A. Joseph.

SOME CONNECTING LINKS. . I have attempted to show, from a study of the intermediate forms at -our command, both living and extinct, that the great gioups of animals are more closely related than would ab first sight appear. Striking though the evident connection- is, yet the chain is veiy incomplete. Especially is this the case when our inquiry is carried into the past races of extinct animals. The changes which have swept across the. surface of the earth have in. many cases obliterated every trace of life over long periods of time. These blank pages in the zoological record must account for the disappearance of many, intermediate forms which, were they available, would tend to make the chain much more complete.' Even when the animals of the present day are dealt with, the ascending series is far from complete. There are many missing links, showing wide breaches in the bulwarks of the fortress erected by evolutionists ; but we need not marvel at that, for if the development theory be corfeot there must be missing links in the chain of graduated life representing 'any period. The theory supposes that there has been a gradual development of higher forms of liring creatures out of lower. The graduations between any two closely related groups must be almost imperceptible as far as varying individuals are concerned, but it follows as a natural sequence that variation in two distinct directions must e ventualtybring about considerable divergence in two lesser groups derived from a common parentage; and when this stage is reached intermediate forms will have disappeared. If the theory of development be the correct one, before one could see the chain complete in all its links he would require to watch the progress of animal and vegetable life down through the ages fro,m creation's dawn until now. The undoubted gaps in the chain rather support than, confute the development theory, now generally accepted by the ablest thinkers as the expression of the working plan of creation on our earth. . With even the incomplete record at our command we are able to follow the apparent development of

Ascending Groups of Animals.

Beginning with the fishes, at the base of the vertebrates, we are able to follow an ascending series, which is tolerably complete, right onward to the mammals at the head of the columni Passing upward from the true fishes with a two-chambered heart, we first meet in with the lepidosiren, having a three-chambered heart and rudimentary lungs — a connecting link between fishes .and amphibians, though the creature in its habits and habitat closely resembles fishes. Next we encounter the amphibians proper in the proteus,] which still clings^to . its fish-like character in the possession of permanent gills, and its useless, limbs, which appear to serve no other purpose than to prefigure the legs that are to' be in a coming descendant. The axolotl follows in ascendjng order, with its fish-like body and permanent~gills ; but its well-developed limbs make it mofe pronouncedly a land as well as a watei- animal. The heart is threerchambered, but the lungs are, mote highly developed as we ascend. The newt loses* its gills in the t adult stage, but retains its fish-like tail throughout life. It fsegins life distinctly as a fish, breathing] by gills, and living wholly in the water-; but ends with a terrestrial existence'added to the aquatic. The immediate descendants of the newts, the land salamanders, produce their young alive,- but before birth all possess gillß, showing plainly enough the mark of heredity. Still ascending^ we-find . the frog at ilhe top of the great amphibian group of animals, and, in accordance with a wellestablished natural law, it exhibits in detail all ihe chief characteristics of all the amphibians. It begins life as a fish with true gills in 4 fish-like bronchial chamber, and ends as a fouryfooted creature, fully as well adapted to hop about on land as ' to swim in the water. Advancing to the -

lleptiles Proper, we find in the turtles and tortoises many evidences of their distinct frog relationship, in the structure of the adult rather than the young. Another advance in structure is evidenced in the snakes, though rudimentary limbs only are found, in some kinds] as 6he i python. The lizzards, with their fully developed limbs, show another forward move, while the crocodiles complete the group of distinct reptiles now living. Among extinct reptiles the dinosaurs make an undoubted advance in the direction of the coming birds, still more strikingly prefigured in the archasopteryx, with its reptilian body and feathered tail. Birds blend with mammals, again, in the living platypus of Australia ; and so the chain is tolerably complete along the. whole line of vertebrate animals. The ■same thing is found on following the more difficult invertebrate division through all its groups, and plants show a gradation of the same kind which is wonderfully continuous in spite of evident breaks in the chain. Now, what inference can we draw from all this evidence which the careful , investigations of the biologist have laid before us? Is it not more than probable that the infinite variety of animal life on the globe has been derived through a long course of descent from a few primitive forms ? This is the evolution theory as propounded by its ablest advocates, and the number of scientists becoming converts to the theory is always -increasing. Many would willingly admit the theory to have a germ of truth in' it, were it not for the repugnant thought that man must be included in the list. Few of us can.bring ourselves into a fitting [frame of mind to believe or accept the possibility of man, the crowning piece of Nature's mechanism, being the product of evolution from brute ancestors. Waiving this difficulty, it appears evident enough that the theory of ascending development explains creation's plan better than any other. The plan is so beautiful, so complete,* all along the line, that surely only Omniscience could have conceived it and carried it out with unerring aim towards its certain mark, throughout the vast ages of time which we now know to belong to the past of the earth.

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