Degeneration: A Chapter in DarwinismLankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
Science
Degeneration: A Chapter in Darwinism
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
Degeneration; Evolution (Biology)
The young of some, but by no means of all these Ascidians, have a form
totally different from that of their parents. The egg of Phallusia
gives rise to a tadpole, a drawing of which placed side by side with
the somewhat larger tadpole of the common frog is seen in the adjoining
figure (Fig. 16). The young Ascidian has the same general shape as the
young frog, but not only this; the resemblance extends into details,
the internal organs agreeing closely in the two cases. Further still as
shown by the beautiful researches of the Russian naturalist, Kowalewsky,
the resemblance reaches absolute identity when we examine the way in
which the various organs arise from the primitive egg-cell. Tail, body,
spiracle, eye, and mouth, agree in the two tadpoles, the only important
difference being in the position of the two mouths and in the fact that
the Ascidian has one eye while the frog has two.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.—Tadpole of Frog and of Ascidian. Surface view.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.—Tadpole of Frog and of Ascidian. Diagrams
representing the chief internal organs.]
Now let us look at the internal organs (Fig. 17). There are four
structures, which are _all four_ possessed at some time of their lives
by all those animals which we call the Vertebrata, the great branch of
the pedigree to which fishes, reptiles, birds, beasts, and men belong.
And the combination of these marks or structural peculiarities is an
overwhelming piece of evidence in favour of the supposition that the
creatures which possess this combination are derived from one common
ancestor. Just as one would conclude that a man whom one might meet,
say on Salisbury Plain, _must_ belong to the New Zealand race, if it
were found not only that he had the colour, and the hair, and the shape
of head of a New Zealander, but also that he was tattooed like a New
Zealander, carried the weapons of a New Zealander, and, over and above
in addition to these proofs, that he talked the Maori language and none
other; so here, in the case of the vertebrate race, there are certain
qualities and possessions, the accumulation of which cannot be conceived
of as occurring in any animal but one belonging to that race. These four
great structural features are—first, the primitive backbone or notochord;
second, the throat perforated by gill-slits; third, the tubular
nerve-centre or spinal cord and brain placed along the back; and lastly,
and perhaps most distinctive and clinching as an evidence of affinity,
the myelonic or cerebral eye.
Now let us convince ourselves that these four features exist not only
in the frog’s tadpole, as they do in all fishes, reptiles, birds, and
beasts, but that they also exist in the Ascidian tadpole, and, it may be
added, co-exist in no other animals at all.
The corresponding parts are named in Figs. 16 and 17, in such a way as to
render their agreement tolerably clear, whilst in Fig. 18 a more detailed
representation of the head of an Ascidian tadpole is given.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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