Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/79

 Rh Carnivora—the Gallinaceous birds were controlled by the Accipitres.

"Le Règne Animal, à ces époques reculées, était composé d'aprés les mêmes lois; il comprenoit les mêmes classes, les mêmes familles que de nos jours; et en effet, parmi les divers systémes sur l'origine des êtres organisés, il n'en est pax de moins vraisemblable que celui qui en fait naître successivement les ditférens genres par des développemens ou des métamorphoses graduelles." (Cuvier, Oss. Foss. L 3, p. 297.)

This numerical preponderance of Pachydermata, among the earliest fossil Mammalia, beyond the proportion they bear among existing quadrupeds, is a remarkable fact, much insisted on by Cuvier; because it supplies, from the relics of a former world, many intermediate forms which do not occur in the present distribution of that important Order. As the living genera of Pachydermata are more widely separated from one another, than those of any other Order of Mammalia, it is important to fill these vacant intervals with the fossil genera of a former state of the earth; thus supplying links that appeared deficient in the grand continuous chain which connects all past and present forms of organic life, as parts of one great system of Creation.