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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

ALL communications relative to advertisements, post-office orders, and orders for the supply of this Journal should be addressed to the PUBLISHER. All contributions, books, and pamphlets for the EDITOR should be sent to 192, Piccadilly, London, W. To avoid disappointment, contri

butions should not be received later than the 15th of each month. No notice whatever can be taken of communications which do not contain the name and address of the writer, not necessarily for publication, if desired to be withheld. We do not undertake to answer any queries not specially connected with Natural History, in accordance with our acceptance of that term; nor can we answer queries which might be solved by the correspondent by an appeal to any elementary book on the subject. We are always prepared to accept queries of a critical nature, and to publish the replies, provided some of our readers, besides We the querist, are likely to be interested in them. cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts unless sufficient stamps are enclosed to cover the return postage. Neither can we promise to refer to or return any manuscript after one month from the date of its receipt. All microscopical drawings intended for publication should have annexed thereto the powers employed, or the extent of enlargement, indicated in diameters (thus: x 320 diameters). Communications intended for publication should be written on one side of the paper only, and all scientific names, and names of places and individuals should be as legible as possible. Wherever scientific names or technicalities are employed, it is hoped that the common names will accompany them. Lists or tables are inadmissible under any circumstances. Those of the popular names of British plants and animals are retained and registered for publication when sufficienlty complete for that purpose, in whatever form may then be decided upon. ADDRESS No. 192, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W.

A. R. W.-"Nichols's Dictionary of Scientific Terms perhaps suit you; price 12s. Reeve & Co.

"will

M. H.-The hairs on your larvæ are simple, not compound, as in Anthrenus.

A. K. L.-Because heat and spirit will dissolve some crystals, either, or both, often accompany mounting in balsam.

J. A., JUN.-The Natural History division of the "English Cyclopædia" now publishing in parts or volumes by Bradbury & Evans.

G. W.-A good suggestion, and will be remembered.

J. C.-"Microscopic Fungi," 6s.; "British Fungi," 6s. Published by R. Hardwicke, 192, Piccadilly. To preserve fungi, consult these works.

M. G. F. asks the name of the "phosphorescent centipede." The "Apples of Sodom " are galls formed on a species of oak.

A. B.-If communications are not

inserted within three or

four months, it may reasonably be concluded that we have been unable to find room for them.

LIZZIE.-See Notes and Queries in this present number for a full reply, headed "Squirrels."

J. W. W.-We have no knowledge of the method employed by Dr. Gregory with Glenshira sand.

A. E. M.-Only by continued practice and perseverance can you hope to equal the slides of selected Diatoms you name. Is it worth the labour?

T. J.-The fly is Bibio Marci, so named because it appears in abundance at the period of St. Mark's Day. The other insect is a Pimpla, family Ichneumonidæ, too much broken for determination.-F. W.

J. R., JUN.-Several kinds of Willow Galls, so that the query is vague. The covers will also hold the advertise

ments.

A. P.-The Waxwing has visited a great many localities this year. It is much to be regretted that they are so ruthlessly destroyed.

T. J.-There has been a parasitic fungus on No. 3, but it is all gone. It is old and exolete.

J. H. D.-See our answer to G. F. P. in January number, p. 24.

W. W. S.-It is Torula herbarum, spores globose, in chains.

S. L. B.-We do not hear of any maker of the section machine you name. A machine called "Topping's Machine" may be had for 15s.

J. M.-No. 1. Cypræa pediculus (L.); 2. Oliva bullata (Reeve); 3. Conus (Sp.); 4. Lucina divaricata (L.); 5. Neritina viridis (L.); 6. Pecten vestalis (Reeve); 7. Cardium (Sp.).-R. T.

MOSSES (J. F.).-1. Weissia controversa; 2. Pleuridium alternifolium ; 3. Trichostomum rigidulum; 4. Hedwigia ciliata; 5. Didymodon rubellus.-R. B.

J. H.-There is nothing strange in any of the Reptilia hybernating.

P. P.-Gardiner, High Holborn, or Cooke, Oxford Street, London. We do not know where Bermuda earth can be obtained.

M. R." Harvey's Synopsis of British Seaweeds; " Reeve & Co.; 5s. You may obtain "prepared skins" of either of the naturalists above-named (answer to P. P.).

S. G.-The best is Val Disneria spiralis.

S. A. M.-It is such a common occurrence that we cannot afford it space.

S. M. P.-We object to giving very precise localities for rare plants, which may end in their extermination. There is war enough against rare plants and animals now, which we have no desire to increase. We would not, if we could, give the Dorsetshire station, and must be excused from inquiring. E. G. M.-One of the curious Alge, probably from the Southern Ocean, of the genus Corallina.

E. T. S.-The hard fungus is Sclerotium durum, with a mould (Polyactis cinerea) growing from it.

W. F. H.-Closterium, in such a miserable condition that no one would thank you for them.

D. C. B.-Obtain "Gardner's Taxidermy " for one shilling or eighteenpence.

R. G.-Apparently Podura (Achorutes) fimetaria.-I. O. W.

EXCHANGES.

BIRDS' EGGS (British) for British Lepidoptera.-Apply to H. L., Rose-hill, Old Trafford, Manchester.

CHINESE BEETLES, &c., for injections or entomological slide.-W. T. Loy, 10, Rood-lane, Eastcheap.

BRITISH MOSSES.-West country mosses offered in exchange for Devonshire or other species.-F. B., 19, Clarendonplace, Plymouth.

FORAMINIFERA from Kentish chalk for other good objects (mounted).-W. Freeman, 2, Ravensbourne-hill, Lewishamroad, Greenwich, S.E.

ORAN EARTH and seeds of Paulownia.-J. W. Leakey, 3, Prince of Wales Avenue, Malden-road, Haverstock-hill. MUMMY CLOTH (genuine from Luxor), unmounted, for sections, animal or vegetable.-W. Spicer, Itchen Abbas, Alresford.

HAIR OF TIGER, Leopard, &c., and corallines, for mounted palates of mollusca, except whelk and periwinkle.-E. C. Jellie, Eldon Villa, Redland, Bristol.

EPITHEMIA TURGIDA or Coscinodiscus (mounted) for Arachnoidiscus or Triceratium.-G. Moore, Dereham-road, Norwich. FERNS.-Seedling Gymnogramma Charophylla for seedling G.leptophylla.-H. J. Charlton, 2, Richmond-grove, Queen'sroad, Everton, Liverpool.

SMUT IN WHEAT.-Send stamped envelope (with address) to J. J. Fox, Devizes.

FISH SCALES offered for unmounted specimens of the same.-J. H. M., 17, Walham-grove, St. John's, Fulham, S.W. LAND AND FRESHWATER SHELLS (British) wanted in exchange for land and freshwater shells of Maine (U.S.).— Address, Rev. E. C. Bolles, Portland, Maine, U. States.

FIBROUS COPPER offered for other mineral objects (unmounted).-A. S., 2, Hanover-place, Rye-lane, Peckham. MICROSCOPIC OBJECTS for bat hairs from named specimens. - Geo. Potter, Montpellier-road, Upper Holloway, N.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

"The Technologist," No. 7, New Series, February, 1867. "The Quarterly Magazine of the High Wycombe Natural History Society," January, 1867. No. 3.

"Catalogue of Ferns." R. M. Stark, York-road, Trinity, Edinburgh.

"A Fox's Tale: a Sketch of the Hunting Field." Day & Son (Limited). 1867.

COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED.-F. B.-A. P.-J. R.W. T. L.-S. L. B.-S. G.-F. W. C.-J. S. T.-S. J. M. J.A. E. M.-L. S. M.-H. M. G.-G. G.-J. W. W.-Lizzie G.H. L.-A. B.-C. S. B.-H. H. A. F.-M. G. F.-E. F. B.-E. T. S.-G. C. D.-J. B.-J. C.-W. G. S.-G. W.-J. A., Jun.-R. McL.-J. H.-L (Lynn).-H. L.-L. H. F.-E. G. J. -A. K. L.-M. H.-J. B. K.-A. R. W.-H. W.-T. G. P.R. H.-F. B.-J. H. M.-H. H. K.-C. D.-H. W. L.-E. M. H. -E. C. J.-J. D.-J. C. H. (Glasgow).-W. F.-J. W. L.W. W. S.-W. T. I.-G. M.-G. E. C.-H. W.-J. W.-T. B. -W. A. L.-W. P.-H. J. C.-G. M.-R. G.-A. M.-A. N.J. J. F.-J. H.-M. R.-P. P.-E. J.-J. F.-E. G. M.E. T. S.-W. F. H.-S. M. P.-A. M. B.-F. M. B.-E. C. B. (Portland, U.S.).-C. H.-S. A. M.-H. T.-G. P.-W. W.J. M. C.-W. L. H.-G. G.-D. C. B.-A. S.-J. R., Jun.B. T.-E. D. B.-J. R.-E. S. W.-E. D. C.-J. B.-J. P.H. G. G.-W. A. L.-A. P.

PAULOWNIA sent to T. L. B.-E. B.-C. B.-J. B. (Cockermouth).-J. B. (Euston).-G. E. C.-J. F. C.-J. C. D.-M. F. -E. G.-G. G.-W. H. H.-J. C. H.-H. (Sheffield).-H. (London).-A. L.-J. H. M.-S.-G. E. S.-J. S.-E. W.F. W.-J. T. Y.-A. B.-F. B.-D. H.-R. H. M.-W. H.

HOW TO STUDY NATURAL HISTORY.*

BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY, F.R.S., &c.

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ATURAL HISTORY is the name familiarly applied to the study of the properties of such natural bodies as minerals, plants, and animals; the sciences which embody the knowledge man has acquired upon these subjects are commonly termed Natural Sciences, in contradistinction to other so-called "physical," sciences; and those who devote themselves especially to the pursuit of such sciences have been, and are, commonly termed "Naturalists."

Linnæus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his "Systema Naturæ" was a work upon natural history in the broadest acceptation of the term; in it that great methodizing spirit embodied all that was known in his time of the distinctive characters of minerals, animals, and plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnæus gave to the investigation of nature soon rendered it impossible that any one man should write another "Systema Naturæ," and extremely difficult for any one to become a naturalist such as Linnæus was.

Great as have been the advances made by all the three branches of science, of old included under the title of natural history, there can be no doubt that zoology and botany have grown in an enormously greater ratio than mineralogy; and hence, as I suppose, the name of "natural history" has gradually become more and more definitely attached to these prominent divisions of the subject, and by "naturalist" people have meant more and more distinctly to imply a student of the structure and functions of living beings.

However this may be, it is certain that the

The substance of these remarks was embodied in a lecture on Zoology delivered at the South Kensington Museum in 1860.

No. 28.

advance of knowledge has gradually widened the distance between mineralogy and its old associates, while it has drawn zoology and botany closer together; so that of late years it has been found convenient (and indeed necessary) to associate the sciences which deal with vitality and all its phenomena under the common head of "biology;' and the biologists have come to repudiate any blood-relationship with their foster-brothers, the mineralogists.

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Certain broad laws have a general application throughout both the animal and the vegetable worlds; but the ground common to these kingdoms of nature is not of very wide extent, and the multiplicity of details is so great, that the student of living beings finds himself obliged to devote his attention exclusively either to the one or the other, If he elects to study plants, under any aspect, we know at once what to call him; he is a botanist, and his science is botany. But if the investigation of animal life be his choice, the name generally applied to him will vary, according to the kind of animals he studies, or the particular phenomena of animal life to which he confines his attention. If the study of man is his object, he is called an anatomist, or a physiologist, or an ethnologist; but if he dissects animals, or examines into the mode in which their functions are performed, he is a comparative anatomist or comparative physiologist. If he turns his attention to fossil animals, he is a palaontologist. If his mind is more particularly directed to the description, specific discrimination, classification, and distribution of animals, he is termed a zoologist.

For my present purpose, however, I shall recognize none of these titles save the last, which I shall employ as the equivalent of botanist; and I shall use the term zoology as denoting the whole doctrine of animal life, in contradistinction from botany, which signifies the whole doctrine of vegetable life.

Employed in this sense, zoology, like botany, is

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divisible into three great but subordinate sciencesmorphology, physiology, and distribution, each of which may, to a very great extent, be studied independently of the other.

Zoological morphology is the doctrine of animal form or structure. Anatomy is one of its branches, development is another; while classification is the expression of the relations which different animals bear to one another, in respect of their anatomy and their development.

Zoological distribution is the study of animals in relation to the terrestrial conditions which obtain now, or have obtained at any previous epoch of the earth's history.

Zoological physiology, lastly, is the doctrine of the functions or actions of animals. It regards animal bodies as machines impelled by certain forces, and performing an amount of work, which can be expressed in terms of the ordinary forces of nature. The final object of physiology is to deduce the facts of morphology on the one hand, and those of distribution on the other, from the laws of the molecular forces of matter.

Such is the scope of zoology. But if I were to content myself with the enunciation of these dry definitions, I should ill exemplify that method of studying this branch of physical science, which it is my chief business to recommend. Let us turn away, then, from abstract definitions. Let us take some concrete living thing, some animal (the commoner the better), and let us see how the application of common sense and common logic to the obvious facts it presents inevitably leads us into all these branches of zoological science.

I will suppose that I have before me a lobster. When I examine it, what appears to be the most striking character it presents? Why, I observe that this part which we call the tail of the lobster is made up of six distinct hard rings and a seventh terminal piece. If I separate one of the middle rings, say the third, I find it carries upon its under surface a pair of limbs or appendages, each of which consists of a stalk and two terminal pieces.

If I now take the fourth ring I find it has the same structure, and so have the fifth and the second; so that in each of these divisions of the tail I find parts which correspond with one another, a ring and two appendages; and in each appendage a stalk and two end pieces. These corresponding parts are called, in the technical language of anatomy, "homologous parts." The ring of the third division is the "homologue" of the ring of the fifth; the appendage of the former is the homologue of the appendage of the latter. And as each division exhibits corresponding parts in corresponding places, we say that all the divisions are constructed upon the same plan. But now let us consider the sixth division. It is similar to, and yet different from, the others. The ring is essentially

the same as in the other divisions; but the appendages look at first as if they were very different; and yet when we regard them closely, what do we find? A stalk and two terminal divisions exactly as in the others, but the stalk is very short and very thick, the terminal divisions are very broad and flat, and one of them is divided into two pieces.

I may say, therefore, that the sixth segment is like the others in plan, but that it is modified in its details.

The first segment is like the others, so far as its ring is concerned; and though its appendages differ from any of those yet examined in the simplicity of their structure, parts corresponding with the stem and one of the divisions of the appendages of the other segments can be readily discerned in them.

Thus it appears that the lobster's tail is composed of a series of segments which are fundamentally similar, though each presents peculiar modifications of the plan common to all. But when I turn to the fore part of the body, I see at first nothing but a great shield-like shell, called technically the "carapace," ending in front in a sharp spine, on either side of which are the curious compound eyes, set upon the ends of stout moveable stalks. Behind these, on the under side of the body, are two pairs of long feelers or antennæ, followed by six pairs of jaws, folded against one another over the mouth, and five pairs of legs, the foremost of these being the great pinchers or claws of the lobster.

It looks at first a little hopeless to attempt to find in this complex mass a series of rings, each with its pair of appendages, such as I have shown you in the abdomen, and yet it is not difficult to demonstrate their existence. Strip off the legs, and you will find that each pair is attached to a very definite segment of the under wall of the body; but these segments, instead of being the lower parts of free rings, as in the tail, are such parts of rings which are all solidly united and bound together; and the like is true of the jaws, the feelers, and the eye-stalks, every pair of which is borne upon its own special segment. Thus the conclusion is gradually forced upon us that the body of the lobster is composed of as many rings as there are pairs of appendages, namely, twenty in all, but that the six hindmost rings remain free and moveable, while the fourteen front rings become firmly soldered together, their backs forming one continuous shield-the carapace.

Unity of plan, diversity in execution, is the lesson taught by the study of the rings of the body; and the same instruction is given still more emphatically by the appendages. If I examine the outermost jaw, I find it consists of three distinct portions-an inner, a middle, and an outer, mounted upon a common stem; and if I compare tihs jaw with the legs behind it or the jaws in front of it, I find it

quite easy to see that in the legs it is the part of the appendage which corresponds with the inner division, which becomes modified into what we know familiarly as the "leg," while the middle division disappears, and the outer division is hidden under the carapace. Nor is it more difficult to discern that, in the appendages of the tail, the middle division appears again, and the outer vanishes; while on the other hand, in the foremost jaw, the so-called mandible, the inner division only is left; and, in the same way, the parts of the feelers and of the eye-stalks can be identified with those of the legs and jaws.

But whither does all this tend? To the very remarkable conclusion that a unity of plan, of the same kind as that discoverable in the tail or abdomen of the lobster, pervades the whole organization of its skeleton, so that I can return to any one of the rings of the tail, and by adding a third division to each appendage, use it as a sort of scheme or plan of any ring of the body. I can give names to all the parts, and then if I take any segment of the body of the lobster, I can point out exactly what modification the general plan has undergone in that particular segment; what part has remained moveable, and what has become fixed to another; what has been excessively developed and metamorphosed, and what has been suppressed.

But I imagine I hear the question, how is all this to be tested? No doubt it is a pretty and ingenious way of looking at the structure of any animal, but is it anything more? Does Nature acknowledge in any deeper way this unity of plan we seem to trace?

The objection suggested by these questions is a very valid and important one, and morphology was in an unsound state so long as it rested upon the mere perception of the analogies which obtain between fully formed parts. The unchecked ingenuity of speculative anatomists proved itself fully competent to spin any number of contradictory hypotheses out of the same facts, and endless morphological dreams threatened to supplant scientific theory.

Happily, however, there is a criterion of morphological truth, and a sure test of all homologies. Our lobster has not always been what we see it; it was once an egg, a semifluid mass of yolk, not so big as a pin's head, contained in a transparent membrane, and exhibiting not the least trace of any one of those organs whose multiplicity and complexity, in the adult, are so surprising. After a time a delicate patch of cellular membrane appeared upon one face of this yolk, and that patch was the foundation of the whole creature, the clay out of which it would be moulded. Gradually investing the yolk, it became subdivided by transverse constrictions into segments, the forerunners of the rings of the body. Upon the ventral surface of

each of the rings thus sketched out, a pair of budlike prominences made their appearance—the rudiments of the appendages of the ring. At first all the appendages were alike, but as they grew, most of them became distinguished with a stem and two terminal divisions, to which in the middle part of the body was added a third outer division; and it was only at a later period that, by the modification or abortion of certain of these primitive constituents, the limbs acquired their perfect form.

Thus the study of development proves that the doctrine of unity of plan is not merely a fancy; that it is not merely one way of looking at the matter, but that it is the expression of deep-seated natural facts. The legs and jaws of the lobster may not merely be regarded as modifications of a common type, in fact and in nature they are so,the leg and the jaw of the young animal being, at first, indistinguishable.

These are wonderful truths, the more so because the zoologist finds them to be of universal application. The investigation of a polype, of a snail, of a fish, of a horse, or of a man, would have led us, though by a less easy path, perhaps, to exactly the same point. Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple. Every animal has at first the form of an egg, and every animal and every organic part, in reaching its adult state, passes through conditions common to other animals and other adult parts; and this leads me to another point. I have hitherto spoken as if the lobster were alone in the world, but, as I need hardly remind you, there are myriads of other animal organisms. Of these, some-such as men, horses, birds, fishes, snails, slugs, oysters, corals, and sponges are not in the least like the lobster. But other animals, though they may differ a good deal from the lobster, are yet either very like it, or are like something that is like it. The cray fish, the rock lobster, and the prawn, and the shrimp, for example, however different, are yet so like lobsters, that a child would group them as of the lobster kind, in contradistinction to snails and slugs; and these last again would form a kind by themselves, in contradistinction to cows, horses, and sheep, the cattle kind.

But this spontaneous grouping into "kinds" is the first essay of the human mind at classification, or the calling by a common name of those things that are alike, and the arranging them in such a manner as best to suggest the sum of their likenesses and unlikenesses to other things.

Those kinds which include no other subdivisions than the sexes, or various breeds, are called, in technical language, species. The English lobster is a species, our cray fish is another, our prawn is another. In other countries, however, there are lobsters, cray fish, and prawns very like ours, and

yet presenting sufficient differences to deserve distinction. Naturalists, therefore, express this resemblance and this diversity by grouping them as distinct species of the same genus." But the lobster and the cray fish, though belonging to distinct genera, have many features in common, and hence are grouped together in an assemblage which is called a family. More distant resemblances connect the lobster with the prawn and the crab, which are expressed by putting all these into the same order. Again, more remote, but still very definite, resemblances unite the lobster with the woodlouse, the king crab, the water-flea, and the barnacle, and separate them from all other animals; whence they collectively constitute the larger group, or class, Crustacea. But the Crustacea exhibit many peculiar features in common with insects, spiders and centipedes, so that these are grouped into the still larger assemblage or "province" Articulata, and, finally, the relations which these have to worms and other lower animals, are expressed by combining the whole vast aggregate into the sub-kingdom of Annulosa.

If I had worked my way from a sponge instead of a lobster, I should have found it associated, by like ties, with a great number of other animlas into the subkingdom Protozoa; if I had selected a freshwater polype or a coral, the members of what naturalists term the subkingdom Cælenterata, would have grouped themselves around my type; had a snail been chosen, the inhabitants of all univalve and bivalve, land and water shells, the lamp shells, the squids, and the sea mat would have gradually linked themselves on to it as members of the same subkingdom of Mollusca; and finally, starting from man, I should have been compelled to admit first, the ape, the rat, the horse, the dog, into the same class, and then the bird, the crocodile, the turtle, the frog, and the fish, into the same subkingdom of Vertebrata.

And if I had followed out all these various lines of classification fully, I should discover in the end that there was no animal, either recent or fossil, which did not at once fall into one or other of these subkingdoms. In other words, every animal is organized upon one or other of the five, or more, plans, whose existence renders our classification possible. And so definitely and precisely marked is the structure of each animal, that, in the present state of our knowledge, there is not the least evidence to prove that a form, in the slighest degree transitional between any two of the groups Vertebrata, Annulosa, Mollusca, and Cælenterata, either exists, or has existed, during that period of the earth's history which is recorded by the geologist. Nevertheless, you must not for a moment suppose, because no such transitional forms are known, that the members of the subkingdoms are disconnected from, or independent of, one another. On the con

trary, in their earliest condition they are all alike, and the primordial germs of a man, a dog, a bird, a fish, a beetle, a snail, and a polype, are in no essential structural respects, distinguishable.

In this broad sense, it may with truth be said, that all living animals, and all those dead creations which geology reveals, are bound together by an all-pervading unity of organization, of the same character, though not equal in degree, to that which enables us to discern one and the same plan amidst the twenty different segments of a lobster's body. Truly it has been said, that to a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the Infinite may be

seen.

Turning from these purely morphological considerations, let us now examine into the manner in which the attentive study of the lobster impels us into other lines of research.

Lobsters are found in all the European seas; but on the opposite shores of the Atlantic and in the seas of the southern hemisphere they do not exist. They are, however, represented in these regions by very closely allied, but distinct forms-the Homarus Americanus and the Homarus Capensis, so that we may say that the European has one species of Homarus; the American, another; the African, another; and thus the remarkable facts of geographical distribution begin to dawn upon us.

Again, if we examine the contents of the earth's crust, we shall find in the later of those deposits which have served as the great burying grounds of past ages, numberless lobster-like animals, but none so similar to our living lobster as to make zoologists sure that they belonged even to the same genus. If we go still further back in time, we discover in the oldest rocks of all, the remains of animals, constructed on the same general plan as the lobster, and belonging to the same great group of Crustacea; but for the most part totally different from the lobster, and, indeed, from any other living form of crustacean; and thus we gain a notion of that successive change of the animal population of the globe, in past ages, which is the most striking fact revealed by geology.

Consider, now, where our inquiries have led us. We studied our type morphologically, when we determined its anatomy and its development, and when comparing it, in these respects, with other animals, we made out its place in a system of classification. If we were to examine every animal in a similar manner we should establish a complete body of zoological morphology.

Again, we investigated the distribution of our type in space and in time, and, if the like had been done with every animal, the sciences of geographical and geological distribution would have attained their limit.

But observe one remarkable circumstance, that, up to this point, the question of the life of these

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