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specify types, & limits of variation., & hence indicate gaps.— by this means the laws probably would be. generalized, & afterwards by the examination of the special cases, under which the individual steps in the series have been fixed, to study the physical causes.

All Cuviers generalization, of teeth to kind of extremities come under this head

27^th November

When summing up argument against my theory, doubtless, the presence of animals in own the present orders (not so in S. America, however) is very remarkable & none discovered before them in any part of World. — Wealden to boot. —

56

When one sees in Coralline powers of multiplication of individuals, & yet another means for individuals (Mem: transportation will be answered) one looks to analogy for cause in plants, where innumberable individuals can be produced. & yet sexual apparatus. —

My account of Circus cinereus of the Falklands Isl^d. is interesting as showing some change in habits before form. —

I have already given various examples

5 (23)

87

It must never be overlooked that the chronology of geology rests upon amount of physical change affecting which borders of species & only secondarily, by assumption well grounded, on time; — therefore the mere loss of species, which may be the works of a few years as with the Lamantin of Steller¹ tells much less (though the it also the effect of change, than a slow gradation in form which must be effect of slow change & therefore precludes effects of catastrophes, which must serve to confound our chronology. Consider all this. — Extinction & transmutation, two foundations, hitherto confounded, of geology. —

¹ Stellers Sea-cow.

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L'Institut 1838. p. 414; M. Guyon¹ thinks monsters more common in Africa than in Europe especially with Europeans settled there.

L'Institut do. p. 419. long account of Hyaenodon, a fossil dog leading towards Hyaena.² — See Comte Rendu. — I suspect good case of fossil filling up blank. — not between existing series of species of dog & Hyaena. — but a common point. whence both may have descended. —

21

¹ M. Guyon, L'Institut, tome 6, 1838, p. 414: Tératologie, "en Afrique les monstruosités sont plus communes qu'en Europe".

² M. Laizer & M. Parieu, L'Institut, tome 6, 1838, p. 419; Paléontologie: Mammifère inconnu … "Description et détermination d'une machoire appartenant à un Mammifère jusqu'à présent inconnu … Hyaenodon".

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continent. in like manner as Madagascar does to otherside of Africa. — (& Juan Fernandez to Chile ??) Falklands to southern portion. Annals of Nat. Hist.¹ 1838 — do p. 269. on fresh water fish peculiar to Ireland.² do. p. 283. on the dark ears of the wild Chillingham cattle,³ with reference to Mr. Bell's⁴ statement of the tame ones, — the an instance of a trifling peculiarity not to be eradicated. — do. p. 305. — M^r Owen⁵ says the in abstract in his paper on the Dugong, "The generative organs being those which are most, remotely related to the habits & food of an animal, I have always regarded as affording very clear indication of its true affinities. We are least likely in the modifications of these organs to mistake a merely adaptive to an essential character" — How little clear meaning has this to what it might have. —

11

¹ Edward Forbes, Annals of Natural History, vol. 2, 1838, p. 250: "On the Land and Freshwater Mollusca of Algiers and Bougia".

² William Thompson, Annals of Natural History, vol. 2, 1838, p. 269: "On Fishes; containing a notice of one Species new to the British, and of others to the Irish Fauna" (Salmo ferox, Lake Trout, in Lough Neagh, cf. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1835, p. 81.)

³ L. Hindmarsh, Annals of Natural History, vol. 2, 1838, p. 274, "On the Wild Cattle of Chillingham Park"; on p. 283: "in the colour of the ears there is a trifling difference, but this appears to be an occasional variety in the species".

⁴ Thomas Bell, History of British Quadrupeds, London, 1837.

⁵ Richard Owen, Annals of Natural History, vol. 2, 1838, p. 305, reference to Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 27 March 1838, containing this statement.

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What is the difference between an essential character & an adaptive one. — are not the essential ones eminently adaptive. — Does it not mean lately adapted or transformed & hence not indicative of true affinity. — — — Owen¹ says Dugong connected with Pachydermata. — it was a Pachyderm,which was the origin of the aquatic Mammifers. p. 306. the Dugong cannot be united with true Cetacea or whales.² — but an aquatic Pachyderm & Walrus — aquatic seal — (Consult this passage when considering origin of Northern Cetacea). — — do p. 318 M. Pictet³ of writing of Goethe, alludes to difference between fossil & recent Bull: like fossil & recent shells of the new raised beaches. — who maintains that

¹ Richard Owen, ibid., p. 307: "I conclude, therefore, that the Dugong and its congeners must either form a group apart, or be joined as in the classification of M. de Blainville, with the Pachyderm".

² Richard Owen, ibid., p. 306: "Now we have seen … the junction of the Dugongs and Manatees with the true Whales cannot therefore be admitted in a distribution of animals according to their organization".

³ M. F. G. Pictet, "On the writings of Goethe relative to Natural History", Annals of Natural History, vol. 2, 1839, pp. 313-322; on p. 321: "his observations on the researches of Dr Jaeger upon the subject of fossil bulls found in the neighbourhood of Stuttgart. Goethe seeks to prove in this article, that the difference which exists between fossil and recent bulls may be looked upon as the result of the perfecting of the species during the centuries which separate the two periods".