The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-26 00:00:00

PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON EXTINCT
iNIMALS.

On Monday night Professor Huxley delivered his second
lecture on "Extinct Animals intermediate between Birds
and Reptiles," to the members of th Midland Institute,
Birmingham. He said it would be in their recollection
that he had pointed out on the last occasion no fewer
than eight different points in the organisation
of birds differing from that of reptiles. He should like
to warn them that these were by no means all
the differences. They happened to be those requisite for
his present purposes, and they were differences other than
those which might have existed, although they left no
traces of themselves in fossil forms. Having recapitulated
the differences he had previously pointed out between
birds and reptiles, he went on to argue in favour of the
doctrine of evolution by references to the records of the
past history of reptiles. If there was a probability of
birds approaching to reptiles, there was an equal probabi-
lity that sundry reptiles approached birds—the approxima-
tion was not likely to be all on one side, so
to speak. They were met at this point by a
very notorious fact in the history of the extinct
world, of those animals in the secondary age—a fact
which at first sight seemed to be the sort of evidence
they wanted. He then referred to diagrams representing
animals which had existed and which bore in part of
them an organisation resemblance to reptiles, and in the
other portion of their forms resembled birds. He dwelt
on this point at considerable length and with
some minuteness, showing that reptilian creatures
in the early periods of which he spoke were able
to fly as bats now fly—flying not with a bird's
wing but with instruments something more like a bat's
wing, yet not a bat's wing. These wonderful creatures
must have been flying about in the secondary period in
the same way as birds do in our own time. They were
however, not birds, nor even on their way to a bird. The
link wanting in the direction in which he was seeking
was not to be found among the creatures of the secondary
epoch. It was to be met with in the trace of gigantic lizards
in soft beds of sand and in certain fossil remains which
had been described. Here was displayed a creature
which in one half featured a reptile undoubtedly, but
which in the other half—in the hinder—was more like a
bird than any reptile whatever, and which in many re-
spects wiped out the distinctive character between birds
and reptiles. After entering into interesting but compli-
cated details with respect to to the conformation of the
bones of the pelvis in reptiles and birds in the early ages,
Professor Huxley, reviewing the whole subject, said the
main conclusions were that there is such a thing as a bird
and that there is such a thing as a reptile, and that
these two creatures, separated now by wide and definite
gaps of structure, sprung either from the same common
stock, or that birds had proceeded from reptiles.
This was the belief of the person who held by the doctrine
of evolution. lie mentioned as a curious fact that an
eminent American anatomist, working independently of
his own researches, had arrived at precisely similar con-
clusions. He looked upon this as so much definite gain
for science, and if it was a gain for science, it was a gain
for the doctrine of evolution ; for the fact of the existence
of intermediate forms between reptiles and birds made it
infinitely more probable that birds proceeded out of
reptiles than that they proceeded out of the earth as
separate and distinct forms. (Cheers.)