[225] I have seen (Zooplast. Cab. 1860) a humming-bird (_colibri_) with a beak as long as the whole bird, head and tail included. This bird must certainly have had to fetch out its food from a considerable depth, were it only from the calyx of a flower (Cuvier, "Anat. Comp." vol. iv. p. 374); otherwise it would not have given itself the luxury, or submitted to the encumbrance, of such a beak. [226] Galenus, "De Usu Partium Anim.," i. 1. [227] Lucretius, v. pp. 1032-1039. [228] Aristot., "De Part. Animal.," iv. 6: "They have a weapon because they have passion." [Tr.] [229] _Ibid._ c. 12: "Nature makes the tools for the work, not the work for the tools." [Tr.] This truth forces itself upon thoughtful zoologists and zootomists with such cogency, that unless their mind is at the same time purified by a deeper philosophy, it may lead them into strange errors. Now this actually happened to a very eminent zoologist, the immortal De Lamarck, who has acquired everlasting fame by his discovery of the classification of animals in _vertebrata_ and _non-vertebrata_, so admirable in depth of view. For he quite seriously maintains and tries to prove[230] at length, that the shape of each animal species, the weapons peculiar to it, and its organs of every sort destined for outward use, were by no means present at the origin of that species, but have on the contrary _come into being_ gradually _in the course of time_ and through continued generation, in consequence of the exertions of the animal's will, evoked by the nature of its position and surroundings, through its own repeated efforts and the habits to which these gave rise. Aquatic birds and mammalia that swim, he says, have only become web-footed through stretching their toes asunder in swimming; moor-fowl acquired their long legs and necks by wading; horned cattle only gradually acquired horns because as they had no proper teeth for combating, they fought with their heads, and this combative propensity in course of time produced horns or antlers; the snail was originally, like other _mollusca_, without feelers; but out of the desire to feel the objects lying before it, these gradually arose; the whole feline species acquired claws only in course of time, from their desire to tear the flesh of their prey, and the moveable coverings of those claws, from the necessity of protecting them in walking without being prevented from using them when they wished; the giraffe, in the barren, grassless African deserts, being reduced for its food to the leaves of lofty trees, stretched out its neck and forelegs until at last it acquired its singular shape, with a height in front of twenty feet, and thus De Lamarck goes on describing a multitude of animal species as arising according to the same principle, in doing which he overlooks the obvious objection which may be made, that long before the organs necessary for its preservation could have