Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

by Philip Henry Gosse

In like manner the ciliated gemmule from which was formed the "pluteus" of the Urchin, was dependent on the existence of a parent Urchin; the monadiform germ from which was developed the pentacrinus of the Feather-star, was originally hidden in the ovarian tubes of a parent Feather-Star: the infant Serpula that deposited the first atoms of calcareous matter as a commenced tube, had begun its own existence in the body of a parent Serpula.

It is true the evidence of the connexion between the germ and the parent is not in these low forms always patent to the eye; it is physiological. But it is not less conclusive to one who is able to appreciate its force. A physiologist is as sure that every germ, every ovum, in the Invertebrate animals, was produced by an animal of a former generation, as he is of the same fact in a Mammal, where his eye can see the scar of the umbilical cord.

In many instances there is stronger, or rather more obvious and ordinarily appreciable, evidence of the link between the present and the past generation, than the physiological dependence. The world of Insects, which, from its immensity, and from the high organic rank of its members, affords us so exhaustless a mine of economical wonders,—is rich in examples to the point. A few of these I shall cite.

The eggs of many Insects are not dropped anywhere, at random; for, as the newly-born young have limited powers of locomotion, and yet are in general able to subsist only on some particular kind of food, it is necessary that their birth should occur in the immediate proximity of such food: and therefore that the egg should be so placed. Now this circumstance would not be specially noteworthy if the locality selected for the deposition of the egg were the same as that in which the parent insect had been accustomed to find its own private enjoyments: we should reasonably say that the eggs were placed here, because the parents happened to be here. The case, however, is very different.

We never find the egg of the Peacock Butterfly adhering to the leaf of a cabbage, nor that of the Garden White to the leaf of a nettle; but the nettle is invariably selected for the former, and a cruciferous plant for the latter.

Yet there is nothing in the individual wants or likings of the Butterfly, in either case, to account for this. Both the one and the other flutter through the sunny air, alight to drink the water of some slushy pool, rest on the expanding flowers and probe them for nectar, or suck the exuding juices of an over-ripe fruit. But when did you ever see the gorgeous-eyed Peacock feeding on a nettle, or the White on a cabbage? Eagerly as they seek these plants, it is solely for the purpose of depositing their eggs where instinct teaches them their unborn progeny will find suitable food.

Supposing, therefore, we had found the egg of either of these butterflies at the moment of its creation, we should assuredly have found it on the nettle or the cabbage (as the case might be); because to suppose it in any other situation would be equivalent to supposing it so placed as that the end of its creation—the life of the species created—would be ipso facto frustrated. But, finding it so, the question naturally arises,—Why here, and not elsewhere? and the only possible answer, on the ground of phenomena, is, Because the parent chose this situation for it. And thus we are inevitably thrown back to an anterior generation, which is equivalent to past time.

Again, if we had seen the egg of the Nut Weevil (Balaninus nucum) just come from the creative hand of God, we should certainly have found it within the immature soft-shelled hazel-nut, because there alone would the grub when hatched meet with "food convenient for" it. And yet if we had sought (ignorant of the fact of its recent creation) the reason of its being there, our acquaintance with entomology would have pointed to the parent beetle, who, with her jaws placed at the tip of a long slender snout, had bored a tiny hole in the tender shell, and had then projected the egg from her abdomen into the interior.

The eggs of the Œstridæ—for example, the Worble of the Ox (Œstrus bovis) or the Bot of the Sheep (Œ. ovis)—would be discovered in no other circumstances than beneath the skin of the former, and at the edge of the nostrils of the latter. For these are the respective situations in which the egg is always deposited, that of the Worble hatching in situ, and forming a superficial abscess in communication with the external air, and that of the Sheep-bot producing a larva which crawls up the nostrils of the poor animal, till it finds a suitable resting-place in the frontal sinuses of the skull. To suppose the egg in any other circumstances than those which I have mentioned, would be to consign it to certain destruction. Yet does not its presence there bear witness to the eclectic care of the parent Gadfly, whose unerring instinct knew how to seek and select the right position?