ngs, &c.)
shows the most obvious signs of their descent from terrestrial
quadrupeds."

I do not quote these words of so great a master as presuming to question
them (even if, as a scientific verdict, I had any motive for so doing),
but merely to point out as a matter of plain and fair reasoning, that if
a Divine Creator had designed certain forms to be gradually attained by
the processes of Evolution, it would not be necessary that any actually
realized form or tangible creature should have existed as ancestors.
Logically, the necessity is _either_ that certain animals should have
actually existed whose descendants gradually lost or gained certain
features and functions till the forms we are speaking of resulted, _or_
that certain patterns or designs should have been created according to
which development proceeded by regular laws till the forms in question
resulted.

A few words as to the terms used in describing the contents of each
group, may be added. It is obvious that the terms are intended to be
exhaustive of certain main groups which are described sufficiently,
without being cast in a form which would have been incompatible with the
use (at the time) of a human agent as the medium of the recorded
Revelation.

(1) "Vegetation" (of an indefinite character, but not bearing seed),
plants bearing seed, trees bearing fruit with the seed in it--certainly
exhaust the entire range of plant-life.

(2) Moving creatures that live (and fish are afterwards expressly
mentioned) and great monsters (tann[i=]n[i=]m), cover the entire field
of life up to Reptilia as far as these are aquatic forms.

(3) The terms used for the third group are also obviously
exhaustive--the separate mention of the _cattle_ and the _beast_
(Carnivora and Ungulates) is a form which is invariably noticed
throughout the Old and New Testaments. The "creeping things" would
include all minor forms, all land reptiles not described above as the
"tann[i=]n[i=]m," and insects.

And it is remarkable that the tortoises, the snakes, and, the more
modern forms of crocodile and lizard, and the amphibia and higher
insects, are all cainozoic--some of them were preceded by more or less
transitory representatives, e.g., the Carboniferous _Eosaurus_ and
Permian _Protosaurus_ the ancient Labyrinthodons and Urodelas,
Chelonians and the amphicaelian crocodiles. Snakes have no palaeozoic
representative.

Land insects, as might naturally be expected, go back to the