If he turns his attention to fossil animals, he is a palaeontologist.

Indeed, the mass of biological facts has been so greatly increased, and the range of biological speculation has been so vastly widened, by the researches of the geologist and palaeontologist, that it is to be feared there are naturalists in existence who look upon geology as Brindley regarded rivers.

Those whose business it is to acquaint themselves specially with the works of palaeontologists, in fact, will be fully aware that very few, if any, would rest satisfied with such a statement of the conclusions of their branch of biology as that which has just been given.

It may not be unprofitable to bestow on these professions a somewhat more critical examination than they have hitherto received, in order to ascertain how far they rest on an irrefragable basis; or whether, after all, it might not be well for palaeontologists to learn a little more carefully that scientific "ars artium," the art of saying "I don't know.

Every one is aware that Professor Bronn's "Untersuchungen" and Professor Pictet's "Traité de Paléontologie" are works of standard authority, familiarly consulted by every working palaeontologist.

In the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods, one verdict"not proven, and not provable"must be recorded against all the grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe.

In commencing these remarks, mention was made of the great obligations under which the naturalist lies to the geologist and palaeontologist.

Assuredly the time will come when these obligations will be repaid tenfold, and when the maze of the world's past history, through which the pure geologist and the pure palaeontologist find no guidance, will be securely threaded by the clue furnished by the naturalist.

I availed myself of the opportunity to endeavour to "take stock" of that portion of the science of biology which is commonly called "palaeontology," as it then existed; and, discussing one after another the doctrines held by palaeontologists, I put before you the results of my attempts to sift the well-established from the hypothetical or the doubtful.

With respect to the first proposition, I may remark that whatever may be the case among the physical geologists, catastrophic palaeontologists are practically extinct.

It is no easy matter to find clear and unmistakable evidence of filiation among fossil animals; for, in order that such evidence should be quite satisfactory, it is necessary that we should be acquainted with all the most important features of the organisation of the animals which are supposed to be thus related, and not merely with the fragments upon which the genera and species of the palaeontologist are so often based.

Hence, if a gradual shifting of the deep sea, which at present bars migration between the easternmost of these islands and America, took place to the westward, while the American side of the sea-bottom was gradually upheaved, the palaeontologist of the future would find, over the Pacific area, exactly such a change as I am supposing to have occurred in the North-Atlantic area at the close of the Mesozoic period.

In the opinion of many palaeontologists, the ancestors of the present hoofed beasts, or ungulates, were contained among these Condylarthra, as they were named by Prof. Cope.

He is a born palaeontologist: that is, he can build up an epic from a hint.

Like those creatures, they too were full of life in their time, and made a great deal of noise; but now they are stiff and fossilized, and an object of curiosity to the literary palaeontologist alone.

We are well pleased at this moment to find that the conclusions we were arriving at in this respect are sustained by the very high authority and impartial judgment of Pictet, the Swiss palaeontologist.

If we allow, with Pictet, that Darwin's theory will very well serve for all that concerns the present epoch of the world's history,an epoch which this renowned palaeontologist regards as including the diluvial or quaternary period,then Darwin's first and foremost need in his onward course is a practicable road from this into and through the tertiary period, the intervening region between the comparatively near and the far remote past.

If the cavern were near Paris it would give rise to a fierce competition between the palaeontologist and the chiffonnier, but placed where it is the soil has not yet been much disturbed.

Like those creatures, they too were full of life in their time and made a great deal of noise; but now they are stiff and fossilised, and only of interest to the literary palaeontologist.