my son, at least till the contrary has
been proved, that these actions to which you refer have nothing at all
to do with coquetry. Those brilliant colors are designed for a purpose
other than that which you suppose; they serve as signals to keep the
community together, or, in other words, they are a common centre round
which the hens may revolve."

"The transition from apes to heathcocks," remarked Jack, "appears to
me somewhat abrupt."

"Not so abrupt as you think, Master Jack," said Wolston; "those who
take the trouble to study Nature, observe an admirable gradation and
easy progression from a simple to a complex organization. There is no
race or species that is not connected by a perceptible link with that
which precedes and that which follows."

"What relation is there, for example," inquired Jack, "between an
oyster and a horse?"

"No immediate relation certainly, but there are intermediate links by
which the two are brought together: they may be regarded, however, as
the opposite extremes of the brotherhood--the two poles in the chain
of existence. A horse bears even less resemblance to a turnip than to
an oyster; a relationship may, nevertheless, be traced, step by step,
between them, dissimilar as they are. There is the polypus, that
singular product of Nature, which, regarded in one light, performs all
the functions of animal life, whilst, when regarded in another, it has
the ordinary attributes of a plant; does this not clearly and
distinctly mark the transition from the vegetable to the animal
kingdom? Again, certain species of worms blend the animal with the
insect tribe, those which are covered with a horny substance unite
them with the crustaceae. These approach fish on the one hand, and
reptiles on the other, whilst reptiles in some species become
moluscs."

"And what is a molusc?" inquired Willis.

"The term _molusc_ is applied by naturalists to creatures which have
no vertebrae, as for example, the cuttle fish and the oyster."

"I believe _you_, Mr. Wolston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they
would have told me that it was a commodore or an admiral."

"Reptiles, I was going to say, are connected at one end of the chain
with moluscs by the slug, and at the other with fish by the eel. From
flying-fish to birds the transition is by no means abrupt. The
ostrich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies,
connects birds with quadrupeds; these again return to fish through the
cet