The palaeontologist found that the oldest fossil forms belonged to these generalized groups, and that more highly specialized forms—­that is, those in which the special class distinctions were more sharply and universally marked—­were of later geological origin.  Thus the oldest fish were most like our present ganoids and sharks, though differing much from both.  Our common teleost fish, like perch and cod, appeared much later.  The oldest bird, the archaeopteryx, had a long tail like that of a lizard, and teeth; and thus stood in many respects almost midway between birds and reptiles.  And most of the earliest forms were “comprehensive,” uniting the characteristics of two or more later groups.  Thus as the classification became more natural, based on a careful comparison of the whole anatomy of the animals, its order was found to coincide in general with that of geological succession.

Then the zooelogist began to ask and investigate how the animal grew in the egg and attained its definite form.  And this study of embryology brought to light many new and interesting facts.  Agassiz especially emphasized and maintained the universality of the fact that there was a remarkable parallelism between embryos of later forms and adults of old or fossil groups.  The embryos of higher forms, he said, pass through and beyond certain stages of structure, which are permanent in lower and older members of the same group.

You remember that the fin on the tail of a fish is as a rule bilobed.  Now the backbone of a perch or cod ends at a point in the end of the tail opposite the angle between the two lobes, without extending out into either of them.  In the shark it extends almost to the end of the upper lobe.  Now we have seen that sharks and ganoids are older than cod.  In the embryo of the cod or perch the backbone has, at an early stage, the same position as in the shark or ganoid; only at a later stage does it attain its definite position.

So Agassiz says the young lepidosteus (a ganoid fish), long after it is hatched, exhibits in the form of its tail characters thus far known only among the fossil fishes of the Devonian period.  The embryology of turtles throws light upon the fossil chelonians.  It is already known that the embryonic changes of frogs and toads coincide with what is known of their succession in past ages.  The characteristics of extinct genera of mammals exhibit everywhere indications that their living representatives in early life resemble them more than they do their own parents.  A minute comparison of a young elephant with any mastodon will show this most fully, not only in the peculiarities of their teeth, but even in the proportion of their limbs, their toes, etc.  It may therefore be considered as a general fact that the phases of development of all living animals correspond to the order of succession of their extinct representatives in past geological times.  The above statements are quoted almost word for word from Professor Agassiz’s