In my possession are two little embryos in spirit, whose names I have omitted to attach, and at present I am quite unable to say to what class they belong.

They may be lizards or small birds, or very young mammalia, so complete is the similarity in the mode of formation of the head and trunk in these animals.

The extremities, however, are still absent in these embryos.
But even if they had existed in the earliest stage of their development we should learn nothing, for the feet of lizards and mammals, the wings and feet of birds, no less than the hands and feet of man, all arise from the same fundamental form." The larvae of most crustaceans, at corresponding stages of development, closely resemble each other, however different the adults may become; and so it is with very many other animals.

A trace of the law of embryonic resemblance occasionally lasts till a rather late age: thus birds of the same genus, and of allied genera, often resemble each other in their immature plumage; as we see in the spotted feathers in the young of the thrush group.

In the cat tribe, most of the species when adult are striped or spotted in lines; and stripes or spots can be plainly distinguished in the whelp of the lion and the puma.