These two types of organisms were the bird and the mammal. Both
existed in the Jurassic, and the mammals at least had many
representatives in the Triassic. In other words, they existed,
with all their higher organisation, during several million years
without attaining power. The mammals remained, during at least
3,000,000 years, a small and obscure caste, immensely
overshadowed by the small-brained reptiles. The birds, while
making more progress, apparently, than the mammals, were far
outnumbered by the flying reptiles until the last part of the
Mesozoic. Then there was another momentous turn of the wheel of
fate, and they emerged from their obscurity to assume the
lordship of the globe.
In earlier years, when some serious hesitation was felt by many
to accept the new doctrine of evolution, a grave difficulty was
found in the circumstance that new types--not merely new species
and new genera, but new orders and even sub-classes--appeared in
the geological record quite suddenly. Was it not a singular
coincidence that in ALL cases the intermediate organisms between
one type and another should have wholly escaped preservation? The
difficulty was generally due to an imperfect acquaintance with
the conditions of the problem.
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