BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS
originally possessed teeth but had lost them, and he believed that this inference from the known to the unknown might at some time be verified.
In 1888 I was working on the hair of the platypus and was able to show that it retained scale-like features which have been lost in the higher mammals. It was desirable to examine a young specimen, and knowing that Professor Kitchin Parker possessed one I asked if he would lend me some sections of the head prepared by his son, Professor Newton Parker. Just as I was about to examine them the thought flashed through my mind, “Perhaps at this young stage the platypus has not lost its true teeth.” I looked, and there they were, complete, with dentine and enamel, lying beneath the gum. The prediction was verified.
I cannot refrain from saying a few words about the generous treatment I received from that great man. I had borrowed his sections not to look for teeth but for hair, and he might well have said that I had anticipated the study he intended to make and must not publish the discovery. Far from it, he wrote full of enthusiasm and kindness, offering himself to communicate my paper to the Royal Society. It was a splendid thing for a young man to meet with so much kindness from one more than twice his age. I shall never forget it, and I hope the memory of it has enabled me to help on my younger comrades.
Later on Professor Charles Stewart found that the teeth cut the gum and are used for a time by the young platypus, but that they soon fall out and are replaced by the horny plates which invade their sockets.
Before considering the evidences of evolution furnished by butterflies and moths, I will attempt to answer the objection that nobody has ever seen one species turn into another and that nobody has brought convincing proof that species
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