does the brain of any other animal; and look at the position and appearance of a seal's head when he comes to the surface of the water: can anything more closely resemble the head of a man in like circumstances? You would almost swear it was a human head at the first glance, so round, so elegantly poised on the shoulders, so intelligent-looking, with its large soft eye, and its high broad forehead. And then its voice, which you call a bark, but which is actually the rudiment of the human voice, uttering the first two syllables that children emit, "Mama!" with such distinctness that your ignorant showmen call it the "talking fish." Your men of science may tell you that you descend from monkeys, but I range myself with those who maintain our descent from the seal.
"You terrestrials have never yet been able to understand the use of the spleen; and, indeed, in your aerial life it is of no use at all, except to swell and get painful when you have the ague: it can even be entirely removed without injury to the terrestrial animal. But, if you ask our anatomists, they will tell you that it is of the greatest utility to a lung-breathing animal below the water, for it acts as a receptacle for a large supply of oxygenated blood, to enable us to exist for a longer time submerged, without breathing, than we otherwise could. Of course, as you terrestrials never make any use of it, it degenerates with you to a mere rudimentary organ; but after you have passed some years in the water, you will find that it has gradually regained the function it had lost by long disuse, and you will find that it will enable you to exist a considerable length of time under water without the need of air.
"Another proof of our aquatic origin is afforded by
