The positive change in passing from the recent to the ancient animal world is greater, but still singularly small.  No fossil animal is so distinct from those now living as to require to be arranged even in a separate class from those which contain existing forms.  It is only when we come to the orders, which may be roughly estimated at about a hundred and thirty, that we meet with fossil animals so distinct from those now living as to require orders for themselves; and these do not amount, on the most liberal estimate, to more than about 10 per cent. of the whole.

There is no certainly known extinct order of Protozoa; there is but one among the Coelenterata—­that of the rugose corals; there is none among the Mollusca; there are three, the Cystidea, Blastoidea, and Edrioasterida, among the Echinoderms; and two, the Trilobita and Eurypterida, among the Crustacea; making altogether five for the great sub-kingdom of Annulosa.  Among Vertebrates there is no ordinally distinct fossil fish:  there is only one extinct order of Amphibia—­the Labyrinthodonts; but there are at least four distinct orders of Reptilia, viz. the Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Pterosauria, Dinosauria, and perhaps another or two.  There is no known extinct order of Birds, and no certainly known extinct order of Mammals, the ordinal distinctness of the “Toxodontia” being doubtful.

The objection that broad statements of this kind, after all, rest largely on negative evidence is obvious, but it has less force than may at first be supposed; for, as might be expected from the circumstances of the case, we possess more abundant positive evidence regarding Fishes and marine Mollusks than respecting any other forms of animal life; and yet these offer us, through the whole range of geological time, no species ordinally distinct from those now living; while the far less numerous class of Echinoderms presents three, and the Crustacea two, such orders, though none of these come down later than the Palaeozoic age.  Lastly, the Reptilia present the extraordinary and exceptional phenomenon of as many extinct as existing orders, if not more; the four mentioned maintaining their existence from the Lias to the Chalk inclusive.

Some years ago one of your Secretaries pointed out another kind of positive palaeontological evidence tending towards the same conclusion—­ afforded by the existence of what he termed “persistent types” of vegetable and of animal life.[4] He stated, on the authority of Dr. Hooker, that there are Carboniferous plants which appear to be generically identical with some now living; that the cone of the Oolitic Araucaria is hardly distinguishable from that of an existing species; that a true Pinus appears in the Purbecks and a Juglans in the Chalk; while, from the Bagshot Sands, a Banksia, the wood of which is not distinguishable from that of species now living in Australia, had been obtained.

[Footnote 4:  See the abstract of a Lecture “On the Persistent Types of Animal Life,” in the Notices of the Meetings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.—­June 3, 1859, vol. iii. p. 151.]