the bird? And the men, who depended for
their very existence on studying the ways of various animals, could not
have been less impressed by these qualities than are we.

Mr Frazer has shown how, from such considerations, the legends
concerning the relations of certain tribes of men with particular
species of animals have arisen, and thus the cults of 'sacred animals'
and of 'totemism' have been gradually developed. From comparisons of
human courage, sagacity, swiftness, strength or perseverance, with
similar qualities displayed by certain animals, it was an easy
transition to the idea that such characteristics were derived by
inheritance.

In the absence of any exact knowledge of anatomy and physiology, the
resemblances of animals to themselves would quite outbulk the
differences in the eyes of primitive men, and the idea of close
relationship in blood does not appear to have been regarded with
distaste. In their origin and in their destiny, no distinction was drawn
between man and what we now designate as the 'lower' animals. Primitive
man not only feels no repugnance to such kinship:--

'But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall hear him company[3].'

It should perhaps be remembered, too, that, in the breeding of domestic
animals, the great facts of heredity and variation could not fail to
have been noticed, and must have given rise to reflection and
speculation. The selection of the best animals for breeding purposes,
and the consequent improvement of their stock, may well have suggested
the transmutation of one kind of animal into a different kind, just as
the crossing of different kinds of animals seems to have suggested the
possible existence of centaurs, griffins and other monstrous forms.

How early the principles of variation and heredity, and even the
possibility of improving breeds by selection, must have been appreciated
by early men is illustrated by the old story of the way in which the
wily Jacob made an attempt--however futile were the means he adopted--to
cheat his employer Laban[4].

Yet, in spite of observed tendencies to variation among animals and
plants, early man must have been convinced of the existence of distinct
kinds ('species') in both the vegetable and animal worlds; he recognised
that plants of definite kinds yielded particular fruits, and that
different kinds of animals did not breed promiscuously with one another,
but that, pairing each with its own k