Transcriber’s notes:

In this transcription a black dotted underline indicates a hyperlink to a page or footnote; hyperlinks also show aqua highlighting when the mouse pointer hovers over them. Page numbers are shown in the right margin. Footnotes are located at the end of the book.

A small number of errors have been corrected silently, including the following:
Amæbæ —> Amœbæ
continuea —> continued
translalations —> translations
Harvar —> Harvard
ST. —> St.
missing word ‘in’ inserted
redundant comma deleted

The following misplaced section of text has been correctly positioned:
disowned. But these are not its best features: its sustained power of reasoning, its wide sweep of observation and reflection, its elevated ethical and social tone, stamp it as a work of high excellence, and as such we cordially recommend it to our readers.”--Saturday Review.

Inconsistently labelled passages of text are as in the original, e.g. a b c d; a b c e; _ b c e;

A title has been added to the original featureless book cover.

In the Press, in Two Volumes, Crown 8vo., with numerous Illustrations,

THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE.

BY

THE SAME AUTHOR.