When I say that these bones were once separate, I am indulging in no mere10 hypothetical Darwinian speculation11. I refer, not to the race, but to the particular crow in person. These very pieces themselves, in their embryonic12 condition, were as distinct as the individual bones of the bird's neck or of our own spines14. If you were to examine the chick in the egg you would find them quite divided. But as the young crow grows more and more into the typical bird-pattern, this lizard-like peculiarity15 fades away, and the separate pieces unite by 'anastomosis' into a single 'coccygean bone,' as the osteologists call it. In all our modern birds, as in this crow, the vertebr? composing the tail-bone are few in number, and are soldered16 together immovably in the adult form. It was not always so, however, with ancestral birds. The earliest known member of the class—the famous fossil bird of the Solenhofen lithographic stone—retained throughout its whole life a long flexible tail, composed of twenty unwelded vertebr?, each of which bore a single pair of quill-feathers, the predecessors17 of our modern pigeon's train. There are many other marked reptilian18 peculiarities19 in this primitive20 oolitic bird; and it apparently21 possessed22 true teeth in its jaws23, as its later cretaceous kinsmen24 discovered by Professor Marsh25 undoubtedly26 did. When we compare side by side those real flying dragons, the Pterodactyls, together with the very birdlike Deinosaurians, on the one hand, and these early toothed and lizard-tailed birds on the other, we can have no reasonable doubt in deciding that our own sparrows and swallows are the remote feathered descendants of an original reptilian or half-reptilian ancestor.
Why modern birds have lost their long flexible tails it is not difficult to see. The tail descends27 to all higher vertebrates as an heirloom from the fishes, the amphibia, and their other aquatic28 predecessors. With these it is a necessary organ of locomotion29 in swimming, and it remains30 almost equally useful to the lithe31 and gliding32 lizard on land. Indeed, the snake is but a lizard who has substituted this wriggling33 motion for the use of legs altogether; and we can trace a gradual succession from the four-legged true lizards34, through snake-like forms with two legs and wholly rudimentary legs, to the absolutely limbless serpents themselves. But to flying birds, on the contrary, a long bony tail is only an inconvenience. All that they need is a little muscular knob for the support of the tail-feathers, which they employ as a rudder in guiding their flight upward or downward, to right or left. The elongated36 waving tail of the Solenhofen bird, with its single pair of quills37, must have been a comparatively ineffectual and clumsy piece of mechanism38 for steering39 an a?rial creature through its novel domain40. Accordingly, the bones soon grew fewer in number and shorter in length, while the feathers simultaneously41 arranged themselves side by side upon the terminal hump. As early as the time when our chalk was deposited, the bird's tail had become what it is at the present day—a single united bone, consisting of a few scarcely distinguishable crowded rings. This is the form it assumes in the toothed fossil birds of Western America. But, as if to preserve the memory of their reptilian origin, birds in their embryo13 stage still go on producing separate caudal vertebr?, only to unite them together at a later point of their development into the typical coccygean bone.
Much the same sort of process has taken place in the higher apes, and, as Mr. Darwin would assure us, in man himself. There the long prehensile42 tail of the monkeys has grown gradually shorter, and, being at last coiled up under the haunches, has finally degenerated43 into an insignificant44 and wholly embedded45 terminal joint5. But, indeed, we can find traces of a similar adaptation to circumstances everywhere. Take, for instance, the common English amphibians46. The newt passes all its life in the water, and therefore always retains its serviceable tail as a swimming organ. The frog in its tadpole47 state is also aquatic, and it swims wholly by means of its broad and flat rudder-like appendage48. But as its legs bud out and it begins to fit itself for a terrestrial existence, the tail undergoes a rapid atrophy49, and finally fades away altogether. To a hopping50 frog on land, such a long train would be a useless drag, while in the water its webbed feet and muscular legs make a satisfactory substitute for the lost organ. Last of all, the tree-frog, leading a specially51 terrestrial life, has no tadpole at all, but emerges from the egg in the full frog-like shape. As he never lives in the water, he never feels the need of a tail.
The edible52 crab53 and lobster54 show us an exactly parallel case amongst crustaceans55. Everybody has noticed that a crab's body is practically identical with a lobster's, only that in the crab the body-segments are broad and compact, while the tail, so conspicuous56 in its kinsman57, is here relatively58 small and tucked away unobtrusively behind the legs. This difference in construction depends entirely59 upon the habits and manners of the two races. The lobster lives among rocks and ledges60; he uses his small legs but little for locomotion, but he springs surprisingly fast and far through the water by a single effort of his powerful muscular tail. As to his big fore-claws, those, we all know, are organs of prehension and weapons of offence, not pieces of locomotive mechanism. Hence the edible and muscular part of a lobster is chiefly to be found in the claws and tail, the latter having naturally the firmest and strongest flesh. The crab, on the other hand, lives on the sandy bottom, and walks about on its lesser61 legs, instead of swimming or darting62 through the water by blows of its tail, like the lobster or the still more active prawn63 and shrimp64. Hence the crab's tail has dwindled65 away to a mere useless historical relic66, while the most important muscles in its body are those seated in the network of shell just above its locomotive legs. In this case, again, it is clear that the appendage has disappeared because the owner had no further use for it. Indeed, if one looks through all nature, one will find the philosophy of tails eminently67 simple and utilitarian68. Those animals that need them evolve them; those animals that do not need them never develop them; and those animals that have once had them, but no longer use them for practical purposes, retain a mere shrivelled rudiment35 as a lingering reminiscence of their original habits.
点击收听单词发音
1 bleak | |
adj.(天气)阴冷的;凄凉的;暗淡的 | |
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2 blanched | |
v.使变白( blanch的过去式 );使(植物)不见阳光而变白;酸洗(金属)使有光泽;用沸水烫(杏仁等)以便去皮 | |
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3 carrion | |
n.腐肉 | |
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4 clumped | |
adj.[医]成群的v.(树、灌木、植物等的)丛、簇( clump的过去式和过去分词 );(土、泥等)团;块;笨重的脚步声 | |
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5 joint | |
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合 | |
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6 jointed | |
有接缝的 | |
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7 lizard | |
n.蜥蜴,壁虎 | |
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8 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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9 analogous | |
adj.相似的;类似的 | |
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10 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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11 speculation | |
n.思索,沉思;猜测;投机 | |
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12 embryonic | |
adj.胚胎的 | |
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13 embryo | |
n.胚胎,萌芽的事物 | |
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14 spines | |
n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 );脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊 | |
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15 peculiarity | |
n.独特性,特色;特殊的东西;怪癖 | |
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16 soldered | |
v.(使)焊接,焊合( solder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17 predecessors | |
n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 );前辈;(被取代的)原有事物;前身 | |
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18 reptilian | |
adj.(像)爬行动物的;(像)爬虫的;卑躬屈节的;卑鄙的n.两栖动物;卑劣的人 | |
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19 peculiarities | |
n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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20 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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21 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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22 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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23 jaws | |
n.口部;嘴 | |
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24 kinsmen | |
n.家属,亲属( kinsman的名词复数 ) | |
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25 marsh | |
n.沼泽,湿地 | |
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26 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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27 descends | |
v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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28 aquatic | |
adj.水生的,水栖的 | |
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29 locomotion | |
n.运动,移动 | |
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30 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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31 lithe | |
adj.(指人、身体)柔软的,易弯的 | |
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32 gliding | |
v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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33 wriggling | |
v.扭动,蠕动,蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 );(使身体某一部位)扭动;耍滑不做,逃避(应做的事等);蠕蠕 | |
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34 lizards | |
n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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35 rudiment | |
n.初步;初级;基本原理 | |
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36 elongated | |
v.延长,加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37 quills | |
n.(刺猬或豪猪的)刺( quill的名词复数 );羽毛管;翮;纡管 | |
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38 mechanism | |
n.机械装置;机构,结构 | |
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39 steering | |
n.操舵装置 | |
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40 domain | |
n.(活动等)领域,范围;领地,势力范围 | |
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41 simultaneously | |
adv.同时发生地,同时进行地 | |
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42 prehensile | |
adj.(足等)适于抓握的 | |
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43 degenerated | |
衰退,堕落,退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
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45 embedded | |
a.扎牢的 | |
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46 amphibians | |
两栖动物( amphibian的名词复数 ); 水陆两用车; 水旱两生植物; 水陆两用飞行器 | |
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47 tadpole | |
n.[动]蝌蚪 | |
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48 appendage | |
n.附加物 | |
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49 atrophy | |
n./v.萎缩,虚脱,衰退 | |
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50 hopping | |
n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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51 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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52 edible | |
n.食品,食物;adj.可食用的 | |
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53 crab | |
n.螃蟹,偏航,脾气乖戾的人,酸苹果;vi.捕蟹,偏航,发牢骚;vt.使偏航,发脾气 | |
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54 lobster | |
n.龙虾,龙虾肉 | |
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55 crustaceans | |
n.甲壳纲动物(如蟹、龙虾)( crustacean的名词复数 ) | |
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56 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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57 kinsman | |
n.男亲属 | |
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58 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
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59 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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60 ledges | |
n.(墙壁,悬崖等)突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 );(平窄的)壁架;横档;(尤指)窗台 | |
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61 lesser | |
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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62 darting | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的现在分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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63 prawn | |
n.对虾,明虾 | |
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64 shrimp | |
n.虾,小虾;矮小的人 | |
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65 dwindled | |
v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66 relic | |
n.神圣的遗物,遗迹,纪念物 | |
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67 eminently | |
adv.突出地;显著地;不寻常地 | |
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68 utilitarian | |
adj.实用的,功利的 | |
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