I may here recall a remark formerly made, namely, that it might require a
long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line
of life, for instance, to fly through the air; and consequently that the
transitional forms would often long remain confined to some one region; but
that, when this adaptation had once been effected, and a few species had
thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short
time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would spread
rapidly and widely throughout the world. Professor Pictet, in his
excellent Review of this work, in commenting on early transitional forms,
and taking birds as an illustration, cannot see how the successive
modifications of the anterior limbs of a supposed prototype could possibly
have been of any advantage. But look at the penguins of the Southern
Ocean; have not these birds their front limbs in this precise intermediate
state of "neither true arms nor true wings?" Yet these birds hold their
place victoriously in the battle for life; for they exist in infinite
numbers and of many kinds. I do not suppose that we here see the real
transitional grades through which the wings of birds have passed; but what
special difficulty is there in believing that it might profit the modified
descendants of the penguin, first to become enabled to flap along the
surface of the sea like the logger-headed duck, and ultimately to rise from
its surface and glide through the air?
I will now give a few examples to illustrate the foregoing remarks, and to
show how liable we are to error in supposing that whole groups of species
have suddenly been produced.
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