not quite so elaborately comparable to that of fishes as he
supposed. But the all-important idea of the uniformity underlying
the seeming diversity of Nature is here exemplified, as elsewhere
in the writings of Erasmus Darwin; and, more specifically, a
clear grasp of the essentials of the function of respiration is
fully demonstrated.


ZOOLOGY AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY


Several causes conspired to make exploration all the fashion
during the closing epoch of the eighteenth century. New aid to
the navigator had been furnished by the perfected compass and
quadrant, and by the invention of the chronometer; medical
science had banished scurvy, which hitherto had been a perpetual
menace to the voyager; and, above all, the restless spirit of the
age impelled the venturesome to seek novelty in fields altogether
new. Some started for the pole, others tried for a northeast or
northwest passage to India, yet others sought the great
fictitious antarctic continent told of by tradition. All these of
course failed of their immediate purpose, but they added much to
the world's store of knowledge and its fund of travellers' tales.

Among all these tales none was more remarkable than those which
told of strange living creatures found in antipodal lands. And
here, as did not happen in every field, the narratives were often
substantiated by the exhibition of specimens that admitted no
question. Many a company of explorers returned more or less laden
with such trophies from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, to the