In fact, the resemblances may, in certain instances, be so deeply
submerged that they no longer appear in the adult organism at all and
are only in evidence during a transitory phase of the embryological
process. In such cases, the embryo or larva exhibits, at a particular
stage, traces of a uniformity completely obliterated from the adult
form. In short, though frequently presented as a distinct argument,
embryological similarity, together with all else of value that can
still be salvaged from the wreck of the Müller-Haeckel Law of Embryonic
Recapitulation, is, at bottom, identical with the general evolutionary
argument from homology. In the latter argument we are directed to
look beneath the modified surface of the adult organism for surviving
vestiges of the ancestral type. In the former, we are bidden to go
deeper still, to the extent, that is, of descending into the very
embryological process itself, in order to discover lingering traces
of the ancestral likeness, which, though now utterly deleted from the
transformed adult, are yet partially persistent in certain embryonic
phases.
In sectioning a larval specimen of the fly-like termite-guest known
as _Termitoxenia Heimi_, Father Wasmann came across a typical
exemplification of this embryological atavism. In the adult insect, a
pair of oar-like appendages replace the wings characteristic of the
_Diptera_ (flies). These appendages are organs of exudation, which
elaborate a secretion whereof the termites are very fond, and thereby
render their possessors welcome guests in the nests of their hosts. The
appendages, therefore, though now undoubtedly inherited characters,
are the specific means by which these inquilines are adapted to their
peculiar environment and mode of life among the termites. Moreover, the
organs in question not only differ from wings functionally, but, in the
adult, they bear no structural resemblance whatever to the wings of
flies. Nevertheless, on examining his sections of the above-mentioned
specimen, Wasmann found a developmental stage of brief duration during
which wing veins appeared in the posterior branches of the embryonic
appendages. Now, assuming that Wasmann’s technique was faultless,
his specimen normal, and his interpretation correct, it is rather
difficult to avoid his conclusion that we have here, in this transitory
larval phase, the last surviving vestige of ancestral wings now wholly
obliterated from the adult type, that, consequently, this wingless
termite guest is genetically related to the winged _Diptera_, and that
we must see in the appendages aboriginal wings diverted from their
primitive function and respecialized for the quite different purpose of
serving as organs of exudation, (cf. “Modern Biology,” p. 385.) Indeed,
phenomena of this kind seem to admit of no other explanation than the
atavistic one. It should be remembered, however, that Wasmann does not
appear to have verified the observation in more than one specimen,
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