extinct.

We should be extremely cautious in concluding that an organ could not have
been formed by transitional gradations of some kind. Numerous cases could
be given among the lower animals of the same organ performing at the same
time wholly distinct functions; thus in the larva of the dragon-fly and in
the fish Cobites the alimentary canal respires, digests, and excretes. In
the Hydra, the animal may be turned inside out, and the exterior surface
will then digest and the stomach respire. In such cases natural selection
might specialise, if any advantage were thus gained, the whole or part of
an organ, which had previously performed two functions, for one function
alone, and thus by insensible steps greatly change its nature. Many plants
are known which regularly produce at the same time differently constructed
flowers; and if such plants were to produce one kind alone, a great change
would be effected with comparative suddenness in the character of the
species. It is, however, probable that the two sorts of flowers borne by
the same plant were originally differentiated by finely graduated steps,
which may still be followed in some few cases.

Again, two distinct organs, or the same organ under two very different
forms, may simultaneously perform in the same individual the same function,
and this is an extremely important means of transition: to give one
instance--there are fish with gills or branchiae that breathe the air
dissolved in the water, at the same time that they breathe free air in
their swim-bladders, this latter organ being divided by highly vascular
partitions and having a ductus pneumaticus for the supply of air. To give
another instance from the vegetable kingdom: plants climb by three
distinct means, by spirally twining, by clasping a support with their
sensitive tendrils, and by the emission of aerial rootlets; these three
means are usually found in distinct groups, but some few species exhibit