e, &c. The same efforts to swim, that is to say, to push the water
for the purpose of moving itself forward, has extended the membrane
between the toes of frogs, turtles, the otter, and the beaver."[301]

[This is taken, I believe, from Dr. Darwin or Buffon, but I have lost
the passage, if, indeed, I ever found it. It had been met by Paley some
years earlier (1802) in the following:--

"There is nothing in the action of swimming as carried on by a bird upon
the surface of the water that should generate a membrane between the
toes. As to that membrane it is an action of constant resistance.... The
web feet of amphibious quadrupeds, seals, otters, &c., fall under the
same observation."[302]]

"On the other hand those birds whose habits lead them to perch on trees,
and which have sprung from parents that have long contracted this habit,
have their toes shaped in a perfectly different manner. Their claws
become lengthened, sharpened, and curved, so as to enable the creature
to lay hold of the boughs on which it so often rests. The shore bird
again, which does not like to swim, is nevertheless continually obliged
to enter the water when searching after its prey. Not liking to plunge
its body in the water, it makes every endeavour to extend and lengthen
its lower limbs. In the course of long time these birds have come to be
elevated, as it were, on stilts, and have got long legs bare of feathers
as far as their thighs, and often still higher. The same bird is
continually trying to extend its neck in order to fish without wetting
its body, and in the course of time its neck has become modified
accordingly.[303]

"Swans, indeed, and geese have short legs and very long necks, but this
is because they plunge their heads as low in the water as they can in
their search for aquatic larvae and other animalcules, but make no effort
to lengthen their legs."[304]

This too is taken from some passage which I have either never seen or
have lost sight of. Paley never gives a reference to an opponent, though
he frequently does so when quoting an author on his own side, but I can
hardly doubt that he had in his mind the passage from which Lamarck in
1809 derived the foregoing, when in 1802 he wrote Sec. 5 of chapter xv. and
the latter half of chapter xxiii. of his 'Natural Theology.'

"The tongues of the ant-eater and the woodpecker," continues Lamarck,
"have become elongated from similar causes. Humming birds catch hold of
things with