Thus the embryology of the Amphioxus and the Ascidia has so much increased our knowledge of man’s stem-history that, although our empirical information is still very incomplete, there is now no defect of any great consequence in it. We may now, therefore, approach our proper task, and reconstruct the phylogeny of man in its chief lines with the aid of this evidence of comparative anatomy and ontogeny. In this the reader will soon see the immense importance of the direct application of the biogenetic law. But before we enter upon the work it will be useful to make a few general observations that are necessary to understand the processes aright. We must say a few words with regard to the period in which the human race was evolved from the animal kingdom. The first thought that occurs to one in this connection is the vast difference between the duration of man’s ontogeny and phylogeny. The individual man needs only nine months for his complete development, from the fecundation of the ovum to the moment when he leaves the maternal womb. The human embryo runs its whole course in the brief space of forty weeks (as a rule, 280 days). In many other mammals the time of the embryonic development is much the same as in man—for instance, in the cow. In the horse and ass it takes a little longer, forty-three to forty-five weeks; in the camel, thirteen months. In the largest mammals, the embryo needs a much longer period for its development in the womb—a year and a half in the rhinoceros, and ninety weeks in the elephant. In these cases pregnancy lasts twice as long as in the case of man, or one and three-quarter years. In the smaller mammals the embryonic period is much shorter. The smallest mammals, the dwarf-mice, develop in three weeks; hares in four weeks, rats and marmots in five weeks, the dog in nine, the pig in seventeen, the sheep in twenty-one and the goat in thirty-six. Birds develop still more quickly. The chick only needs, in normal circumstances, three weeks for its full development. The duck needs twenty-five days, the turkey twenty-seven, the peacock thirty-one, the swan forty-two, and the cassowary sixty-five. The smallest bird, the humming-bird, leaves the egg after twelve days. Hence the duration of individual development within the fœtal membranes is, in the mammals and birds, clearly related to the absolute size of the body of the animal in question. But this is not the only determining feature. There are a number of other circumstances that have an influence on the period of embryonic development. In the Amphioxus the earliest and most important embryonic processes take place so rapidly that the blastula is formed in four hours, the gastrula in six, and the typical vertebrate form in twenty-four.