"All morphologists arrive at the firm conviction that all vertebrata, from the Amphioxus upwards to man himself, all fishes, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and mammals, descend originally from a single vertebrate ancestor, for we cannot imagine that all the different and highly complicated conditions of life which, through a long series of processes or stages of development, led to the typical formation of a vertebrate, have accidentally happened together more than once in the course of the earth's history." (Address to Munich meeting of German Association, vid. Nature, October 4, 1877.)
[246] Origin of Species (6th Edition), p. 265.
[247] Les Emules de Darwin, ii., 76.
[248] History of Plant Life and its bearings on Theory of Evolution (1898).
[249] Harebell.
[250] According to the most recent system of classification, the Monopetalæ, now re-christened Sympetalae, are ranked above the Polypetalæ, the family of the Compositae being highest of all.
[251] Proceedings, vol. v., p. 17, etc. (1875-6). The substance of this address appeared as an article in the Contemporary Review, February, 1877, entitled, "Evolution and the Vegetable Kingdom."
[252] See Appendix B. p. 284.
[253] Modern Ideas of Evolution (6th Edition), pp. 107, seq.
[254] These first mammals, which were exceedingly small, are supposed by most naturalists to have been Marsupials. They would appear presently to have become extinct, no traces of them having been found in the chalk, a formation so rich in other organic remains. As Professor Marsh tells us on this subject (Nature, September 27, 1877, p. 471):