The development, on the contrary, shows unequivocally that the endodermlamella arises as a local coalescence of the endodermal linings of a primitively extensive gastral space.
The one-sided specialization and the peculiar metallic colouring of the lateral tail feathers mark them as the extreme terms of a degenerative series, whilst the symmetry, likeness of constituent parts inter se, and absence of specialized pigment, as well as the fact that they differ little from any average feather of birds in general, mark the contour feather as primitively simple, and as the starting-point from which the highly elaborated eye-painted tail feather has gradually evolved.
The familiar illustration of Lamarck's hypothesis is that of the giraffe, whose long neck might, he suggested, have been acquired by the efforts of a primitively short-necked race of herbivores who stretched their necks to reach the foliage of trees in a land where grass was deficient, the effort producing a distinct elongation in the neck of each generation, which was then transmitted to the next.
In instincts and in character, also, the typical " mountaineers " are to a marked degree primitive; they are, for the most part, very ignorant; they are primitively hospitable and are warm-hearted to friends and strangers, but are implacable in their enmities and are prone to vendettas and family feuds, which often result in the killing in open fight or from ambush of members of one faction by members of another; and their relative seclusion and isolation has brought them, especially in some districts, to a disregard for law, or to a belief that they must execute justice with their own hands.
In relation to the view that the spermatia are sexual cells, or at least were primitively so, it must be pointed out that although the actual fusion of the spermatial nucleus with a female nucleus has not been observed, yet in a few cases the spermatia have been seen to fuse with a projecting portion (trichogyne) of the ascogonium, as in Collema and Physcia, and there is very strong circumstantial evidence that fertilization takes place (see later in section on development of ascocarp).
