Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-09-26
thing at any rate out of the world Of pasa-

thing at any rate out of the world Of para
| doxes.
| For a little while they warned each other
| against too ready a credence in this curious
| held The aborigines reported terrible mon
SterS IN the impenetrable interior OF the
little continent, for example, a colossal
piack lizard The aborigines evidently
| were humbugging
But then, in 1899. Richard Owen. the ex-
cellent English authority on the remains Of
| extinct animals, by chance bought a large
bone that came from Australian territory,
| the island of New Zealand The anatomist
[ recognized ii the bone of gigantic
| bird having relationship with the ostriches.
! 1t was determined then that such gigantic
/ birds had indeed lived in New Zealand not
SO long before. although they are extinct
| today. And these finds opened the way to
an entire series of similar ones on the Aus
! tralian mainland. Then found the
skeletons of veritable monsters, all of which
| lVed there, marSupial animals to whose
| family the kangaroo belongs but fully as
| large as lions and even rhinoceroses.
Egg-Laying Beasts
| After men had become accustomed TO this
| new knowledge. the duck-bill appeared
| again in the foreground. There remained
| nothing, after all, but 10 acknowledge that
| it really did lay eggs. and therefore we. In
| that respect In the others. find most
wonderful Darwnistic link between the
mammals and the reptiles.
IN the meantime the list or lnCredlDI9'
yet real Australian animals had been In
creased with the lizard Hateria, OF New
Zealand. not a black giant. it is true, but
| combining remarkably the typical form
of lizard of today with the forms of long
extinct saurians that at last we had to
create for its benefit an entirely new or.
| der of the reptiles. quite distinct from liz
| ards. snakes, crocodles and turtles.
| Everywhere else, the deeper we peered.
we saw more wonders. be skeptic we
might Cuckoos ran along the ground like
pheasants and an owl cried cuckoo"
Chicken-like birds laid their eggs in enor.
nous hill mounds of wet leaves and left
them there to be quickened by the heat en-.
gendered by fermentation as in an artitlcial
oven. In mating time the bower bird built
himself true marriage bowers of branches
and decorated them with gaudy blossoms,
shells, bones and all kinds of dainty knick-
knacks in a manner really aesthetic.
On the related island of New Zealand.
where the mammals seemed to be missing
altogether and the birds to be developed
the more grotesquely. one parrot lived en-
tirely in the manner of the owl. second
attacked cattle on the pasture with savage
hooked beak like a bird of prey, and in the
fern forests there moved in the gloom q
family of tiny ostrich birds-the kiwis. most
of them not much larger than snipe. and 30
doubly striking in comparison with the
same islands mighty moa ostrichs, now ex.
tinct, which We're larger than our largest
African ostrich. So Australia was and re-
manned the land of geological wonders
The Land of Link-Forms.
To the thinking observer there appeared
| In at least great proportion of these mar
wells a distinct thread. a determined direo-
ton, which gave them all something In
common. Australia was the land Of the
link forms, the forms which linked great
groups to each other.
In common practice we distinguish be-
fva taf oil oPt ba tos
the fish. the amphbia frogs salamandeF
and others. the reptiles QiZards and
others), the birds and the mammals. II
Darwin's teaching is correct must as
sumo that all stand in certain evolution
airy relationship to each other and present
more less distinctly connecting links.
The fish must be descended from very low
animals, which are not even vertebrates,
and In fact, we know fairly good evolu-
tionary form, the So-called lancet fish or
amphioxus. 1t lives at present near many
coasts and also near the Australian strands
as specific, almost distinct, species, known
as epigonichthys.
AS we approach the top the FISH must
show. according to Darwin. evolution toward
the amphibians, the amphibians toward the
reptiles and the reptiles (here the ancestral
tree split itself, so it is believed on the one
side toward the birds, on the other toward
the mammals.
Without doubt that famous lizard hat.
terra, which belongs absolutely and entirely
to Australian domain. is the nearest of all
living animals to the link between the am
phibian and the reptile.
The link between the reptile and tho
mammal Is represented, with at least par.
tial distfnctness, by the duck bill which
| also belongs exclusively to Australia and
It's islands. And Australia. almost alone
of all lands, again gives up the next eyolu.
tionary group leading within the mammal
family from the duck bill to the higher
mammals; hoofed animals. carnivora, mon
keys and others.
The evolution from the reptile to the bird
is not SO simple; that is not for Australia
The wingless moa and kiwi ostriches there
certainly are remarkable, and even very
ancient forms Of birds. But they are not
genuine primeval birds, leading back di.
recty to the lizards. We know how such
genuine lizard bird should appear from the
German Jurassic formations. We have two
imprintS of the so-called archaeopteryx
and that is unquestionably animal ex-
actly between lizard and bird-an animal
to be sure, that does not exist now but
disappeared from the world in that form
probably millions of years ago
A New Zealand Mystery.
1t was pet thought of old Darwin that
in some until then unvisited part of Aus
tralia-there were and are enough of them
something like the archaeopteryx might
be found alive some day. When the trav.
in the SHOWS of the Alps of New Zealand
Darwin adJured him to discover if verita-
BILE lizard-bird did not dwell there But
nothing was seen of such creature, and
probably the tracks We're those of a nam.
NAL. which, to be sure, has not been caught
or described yet
Now there would remain the last great
evolutionary turning point-between fish
and amphibian, and lo find it in Aus,
tralia. And in this missing link we find tha
ancestor of man that lived ard still lives in
the sea.
1t is the lizard-ffs ceratodus, whose dis
covery has been described in a previous
article of this series.
1t was Richard Semon. one of Haeckers
pupils, who won the proof that ceratoduS
really is the missing link between the rep-
tile and the water-dwelling fish. He found
it's eggs after incredible hardships in thu
Australian bush. He studied the life history
of ceratodus from those eggs to maturity.
And he found that in their embryonic STAGE
and in the succeeding stages of development