Yet had such a slow mode of origin, as Darwinians contend for, operated exclusively in all cases, it is absolutely incredible that birds, bats, and pterodactyles should have left the remains they have, and yet not a single relic be preserved in any one instance{130} of any of these different forms of wing in their incipient and relatively imperfect functional condition! [Illustration: WING-BONES OF PTERODACTYLE, BAT, AND BIRD.] Whenever the remains of bats have been found they have presented the exact type of existing forms, and there is as yet no indication of the conditions of an incipient elevation from the ground.
The pterodactyles, again, though a numerous group, are all true and perfect pterodactyles, though surely _some_ of the many incipient forms, which on the Darwinian theory have existed, must have had a good chance of preservation.
As to birds, the only notable instance in which discoveries recently made appear to fill up an important hiatus, is the interpretation given by Professor Huxley[127] to the remains of Dinosaurian reptiles, and which were noticed in the third chapter of this work.

The learned Professor has (as also has Professor Cope in America) shown that in very important {131} and significant points the skeletons of the Iguanodon and of its allies approach very closely to that existing in the ostrich, emeu, rhea, &c.

He has given weighty reasons for thinking that the line of affinity between birds and reptiles passes to the birds last named from the Dinosauria rather than from the Pterodactyles, through Archeopteryx-like forms to the ordinary birds.

Finally, he has thrown out the suggestion that the celebrated footsteps left by some extinct three-toed creatures on the very ancient sandstone of Connecticut were made, not, as hitherto supposed, by true birds, but by more or less ornithic reptiles.

But even supposing all that is asserted or inferred on this subject to be fully proved, it would not approach to a demonstration of specific origin by _minute_ modification.