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Sect VI. Means of Transition

organ, closely analogous to the electric apparatus, & yet are not known were found by Matteuchi not too discharge any electricity; we must owne own that we are too ignorant on what subjects to speculate on the probable means of transition to argue against the probability of transitions of some kind.)

(The electric fishes organs of fish offer another & even ques more serious difficulty; for these occur in only about a dozen members of that great class fishes, & some of these are almost as remote as possible from each other in their great class. Generally when the same organ appears in several members of a class, especially if they have very different habits, we attribute its presence to inheritance from a common ancestor; & its absence in a few scattered members to its subsequent loss. But from the extreme rarity of the electric organs in fishes fish; & their occurrence at such remote points in the scale, together with and what is known on fossil fishes, taken together make such an explanation would not be such a supposition extremely improbable. The presence of luminous organs in a few insects of very different orders is a parallel case, & some others could be given; for instance in plants, the very curious contrivance of the

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