Mivart, as on so many previous occasions, asks: "What would be the utility of the FIRST RUDIMENTARY BEGINNINGS of such structures, and how could such insipient buddings have ever preserved the life of a single Echinus?" He adds, "not even the SUDDEN development of the snapping action would have been beneficial without the freely movable stalk, nor could the latter have been efficient without the snapping jaws, yet no minute, nearly indefinite variations could simultaneously evolve these complex co-ordinations of structure; to deny this seems to do no less than to affirm a startling paradox.

" Paradoxical as this may appear to Mr.

Mivart, tridactyle forcepses, immovably fixed at the base, but capable of a snapping action, certainly exist on some star- fishes; and this is intelligible if they serve, at least in part, as a means of defence.

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