Page - 490 - in The Origin of Species

490 ORIGIN OF SPECIES the principle of variations in the many descendants from some one ancient progenitor, having appeared at a not very early period of life, and having been inherited at a cor- responding period. Embryology rises greatly in interest, when we look at the embryo as a picture, more or less ob- scured, of the progenitor, either in its adult or larval state, of all the members of the same great class. RUDIMENTARY, ATROPHIED, AND ABORTED ORGANS Organs or parts in this strange condition, bearing the plain stamp of inutility, are extremely common, or even general, throughout nature. It would be impossible to name one of the higher animals in which some part or other is not in a rudimentary condition. In the mammalia, for instance, the males possess rudimentary mammae ; in snakes one lobe of the lungs is rudimentary ; in birds the "bastard-wing" may safely be considered as a rudimentary digit, and in some species the whole wing is so far rudimentary that it cannot be used for flight. What can be more curious than the presence of teeth in fcetal whales, which when grown up have not a tooth in their heads; or the teeth, which never cut through the gums, in the upper jaws of unborn calves? Rudimentary organs plainly declare their origin and mean- ing in various ways. There are beetles belonging to closely allied species, or even to the same identical species, which have either full-sized and perfect wings, or mere rudiments of membrane, which not rarely lie under wing-covers firmly soldered together; and in these cases it is impossible to doubt, that the rudiments represent wings. Rudimentary organs sometimes retain their potentiality: this occasionally occurs with the mammae of male mammals, which have been known to become well developed and to secrete milk. So again in the udders in the genus Bos, there are normally four developed and two rudimentary teats; but the latter in our domestic cows sometimes become well developed and yield milk. In regard to plants the petals are sometimes rudimen- tary, and sometimes well-developed in the individuals of the same species. In certain plants having separated sexes Kolreuter found that by crossing a species, in which the male