Evolution / by Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson.

  • Patrick Geddes
Date:
[1911?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evolution / by Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    away the adaptations, what have we left ? ” It is instructive to look into the matter in detail, and to notice, for instance, what types made particular acquisitions. Hag fishes and lampreys (Cyciostomes) were the first animals with skulls; fishes were first with jaws; amphi¬ bians gained fingers and toes, true lungs, a voice, and a mobile tongue; reptiles first show the important antenatal robes (or foetal mem¬ branes) called the amnion and the allantois, and the crocodile was the first creature with a four-chambered heart; birds and mammals are the only warm-blooded animals, and they show a great heightening of brain-develop¬ ment; in all mammals except a few primitive forms there is an extremely important and usually prolonged intimate connection be¬ tween the mother and the unborn young. The Ascent of Man.—As this final achieve¬ ment of Vertebrate evolution will be discussed by Dr. Arthur Keith in a special volume of this Library, we need not do more than refer to a few points of general evolutionary interest. The real distinctiveness of man from his nearest allies depends on his power of building up general ideas and of controlling his conduct in relation to ideals. He has many structural D 2