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Table of Contents

CHAPTER XVII ON THE THEORY OF TRANSFORMATIONS, OR THE COMPARISON OF RELATED FORMS

out by the series of conformal transôÙforôÙmaôÙtions

Three skull drawings projected onto different coordinate grids to illustrate D'Arcy Thompson's theory of biological growth.

which I have represented in Fig. 396. In this case it will perhaps be noticed that the corôÙreôÙsponôÙdence is not always quite accurate in small details. It could easily have been made much more accurate by giving a slightly sinuous curvature to certain of the co-ordinates. But as they stand, the corôÙreôÙsponôÙdence indicated is very close, and the simplicity of the figures illustrates all the better the general character of the transformation.

By similar and not more violent changes we pass easily to such allied forms as the Titanotheres (Fig. 397); and the well-known series of species of Titanotherium, by which Professor Osborn has {763} illustrated the evolution of this genus, constitutes a simple and suitable case for the application of our method.

But our method enables us to pass over greater gaps than these, and to discern the general, and to a very large extent even the detailed, resemblances between the skull of the rhinoceros and

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