eptiles, should have been crowded into the time during which the
Permian conditions quietly passed away, and the Triassic conditions
began? Does not any such supposition become in the highest degree
improbable, when, in the terrestrial or fresh-water Labyrinthodonts,
which lived on the land of the Carboniferous epoch, as well as on
that of the Trias, we have evidence that one form, of terrestrial life
persisted, throughout all these ages, with no important modification?
For my part, having regard to the small amount of modification (except
in the way of extinction) which the Crocodilian, Lacertilian, and
Chelonian _Reptilia_ have undergone, from the older Mesozoic times to
the present day, I cannot but put the existence of the common stock
from which they sprang far back in the Palaeozoic epoch; and I should
apply a similar argumentation to all other groups of animals.

IV. Professor Haeckel proposes a number of modifications in Taxonomy,
all of which are well worthy of consideration. Thus he establishes a
third primary division of the living world, distinct from both
animals and plants, under the name of the _Protista_, to include the
_Myxomycetes_, the _Diatomaceae_, and the _Labyrinthulae_, which are
commonly regarded as plants, with the _Noctilucae_, the _Flagellata_,
the _Rhizopoda_, the _Protoplasta_, and the _Monera_, which are most
generally included within the animal world. A like attempt has been
made, by other writers, to escape the inconvenience of calling these
dubious organisms by the name of plant or animal; but I confess,
it appears to me, that the inconvenience which is eluded in one
direction, by this step, is met in two others. Professor Haeckel
himself doubts whether the _Fungi_ ought not to be removed into his
_Protista_. If they are not, indeed, the _Myxomycetes_ render the
drawing of every line of demarcation between _Protista_ and Plants
impossible. But if they are, who is to define the _Fungi_ from the
_Algae_? Yet the sea-weeds are surely, in every respect, plants.
On the other hand, Professor Haeckel puts the sponges among the
_Coelenterata_ (or polypes and corals), with the double inconvenience,
as it appears to me, of separating the sponges from their immediate
kindred, the _Protoplasta_, and destroying the definition of the
_Coelenterata_. So again, the _Infusoria_ possess all the characters
of animality, but it can hardly be said that they are as clearly
allied to the worms as they are to