Some authors have even supposed that, as the individual has a definite length of life, so have species a definite duration.

No one can have marvelled more than I have done at the extinction of species.

When I found in La Plata the tooth of a horse embedded with the remains of Mastodon, Megatherium, Toxodon and other extinct monsters, which all co-existed with still living shells at a very late geological period, I was filled with astonishment; for, seeing that the horse, since its introduction by the Spaniards into South America, has run wild over the whole country and has increased in numbers at an unparalleled rate, I asked myself what could so recently have exterminated the former horse under conditions of life apparently so favourable.

But my astonishment was groundless.

Professor Owen soon perceived that the tooth, though so like that of the existing horse, belonged to an extinct species.