“_Eighteenth stage._ Prosimiæ allied to the Loris (Stenops) and Makis (Lemur), without marsupial bones, but _with placenta_.” (“_Pedig. of Man._” p. 77.) Now it may be perhaps interesting to the profane and the innocent to learn that no such “prosimiæ,” with placenta, exists in nature. That it is, in short, another creation of the famous German Evolutionist, and a child of his own brain. For De Quatrefages has pointed out several years ago, that: “The anatomical investigations of MM. Alphonse Milne, Edwards and Grandidier ... place it beyond all doubt that the prosimiæ of Haeckel have _no decidua and a diffuse placenta_. They are _indeciduata_. Far from _any possibility of their being the ancestors of the apes_, according to the principles laid down by Haeckel himself, they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of the zonoplacential mammals ... and ought to be connected with the pachydermata, the edentata and the cetacea.” (p. 110.) But, as that great French _savant_ shows, “Haeckel, without the least hesitation, adds his _prosimiæ_,” to the other groups in the “Pedigree of Man,” and “attributes to them ... a discoidal placenta.” Must the world of the too credulous innocents again accept on faith these two creatures unknown to Science or man, only because “the proof of their existence arises _from the necessity of an intermediate type_?” This necessity, however being one only for the greater success of their inventor, Haeckel, that Simian Homer must not bear us ill will, if we do not hesitate to call his “genealogy” of man a romance of Science of the wildest type. One thing is very suggestive in this speculation. The discovery of the absence of the needed placenta in the so-called _prosimiæ_ now dates several years back. Haeckel knows of it, of course. So does Mr. Ed. B. Aveling, D.Sc., his translator. Why is the error allowed to remain uncorrected, and even unnoticed, in the English translation of the “Pedigree of Man,” of 1887? Do the “members of the International Library of Science and Free-thought,” fear to lose some of Haeckel’s admirers were these to learn the truth? Nevertheless Haeckel’s scientific “Pedigree of Man,” ought to awake and stir up to action the spirit of private enterprise. What a charming _Féerie_ could be made of it on the stage of a theatre! A _corps de ballet_, composed of antediluvian reptiles and giant lizards, gradually, and stage by stage, metamorphosing themselves into kangaroos, lemurs, tailless apes and anthropoid baboons, and finally into a chorus of German biologists! Such a _Féerie_ would leave “Black Crook,” and “Alice in Wonder-Land,” nowhere. An intelligent manager, alive to his interests, would make his fortune were he but to follow the happy thought. _Nota bene_:—The suggestion is copyright. --- THE BOOK OF LIFE, by Sidhartha (also) Vonisa; his discoveries from “6215 to 6240, Anno Mundi.” A cross between an _octavo_ and _duodecimo_.