By comparison with a sentence on page 14, in which a fivefold
order is substituted for the "fourfold order," on which the
"plea for revelation" was originally founded, it appears that
these five categories are "plants, fishes, birds, mammals, and
man," which, Mr. Gladstone affirms, "are given to us in Genesis
in the order of succession in which they are also given by the
latest geological authorities."

I must venture to demur to this statement. I showed, in my
previous paper, that there is no reason to doubt that the term
"great sea monster" (used in Gen. i. 21) includes the most
conspicuous of great sea animals--namely, whales, dolphins,
porpoises, manatees, and dugongs;<2> and, as these are
indubitable mammals, it is impossible to affirm that mammals
come after birds, which are said to have been created on the
same day. Moreover, I pointed out that as these Cetacea and
Sirenia are certainly modified land animals, their existence
implies the antecedent existence of land mammals.

Furthermore, I have to remark that the term "fishes," as used,
technically, in zoology, by no means covers all the moving
creatures that have life, which are bidden to "fill the waters
in the seas" (Gen. i. 20-22.) Marine mollusks and crustacea,
echinoderms, corals, and foraminifera are not technically
fishes. But they are abundant in the palaeozoic rocks, ages upon
ages older than those in which the first evidences of true
fishes appear. And if, in a geological book, Mr. Gladstone finds
the quite true statement that plants appeared before fishes, it
is only by a complete misunderstanding that he can be led to