latter birds utterly vanish. The strongest winged and most vigorous moorcock, if once espied in the air by the enemy, has practically no greater chance of escape than a feeble and sickly bird. On the contrary, the boldest and most energetic grouse-who may fairly be assumed to be, as a rule, the healthiest—will fall victims more frequently than their weaker brethren, from the mere fact that they are more active and venturesome, and hence more likely to be on the wing. The effects of the co-existence of falcons and grouse in any country will be, therefore, not the development of a form of the latter better adapted for rapid flight, and ultimately, in the course of many generations, endowed with longer and more pointed wings, but merely a thinning of numbers which will tell equally upon the strong and the weak, and which in some cases may even give an advantage to the latter. This argument of Mr. Morant's concerning the influence of the falcon upon the development of the grouse appears to us applicable not merely to this individual instance, but to every case where a bird or a beast has to struggle for existence against enemies greatly its superiors in speed, in strength, or in general resources. Slight increments of swiftness or force, trifling improvements in offensive or defensive arms, would be absolutely thrown away under such circumstances, however valuable they might be as against an enemy but slightly superior to the original form. Hence there are numbers of cases where it must become questionable how, on the principle of Natural Selection, advances in these important directions are to be effected."-(The Quarterly Journal of Science. vol. viii., p. 455).

Then it is very difficult to suppose that over a large area the test of any one disability would be applied so rigidly to every individual as to secure the survival of the best able to endure. It is said that those who live show themselves best fitted to live by the very fact of their survival. But it is difficult to believe that the test applied is as exact as when a race is run. For even in the case of the advent of extreme cold, there may be some, that were not the hardiest, which would survive because they happened to occupy a sheltered spot; while others, far more hardy, might be in the most exposed position. In any struggle, in which two members of a persecuted species were pitted against two enemies, if one of them escaped and the other was caught you could

not say that the one that escaped was the fleetest, unless you knew the two enemies were exactly equal in their swiftness. In short, when any given test is applied we can be certain that the fittest will survive only on the condition that the trial takes place under exactly similar circumstances, and in many instances it would be very difficult to prove that this was the case. Accident, under whatever form it may assume, is evidently opposed to the principle of discriminative competition.

"If Hercules and Lichas play at dice

Which is the better man, the greater throw
May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:
So is Alcides beaten by his page;
And so may I, blind fortune leading me,
Miss that, which one unworthier may attain,
And die with grieving."

-(Merchant of Venice. Act ii., sc. 1.) And yet Mr. Wallace, after reviewing all the phenomena of death in the natural world, tells us that we must divest our minds of the idea of accidental death.

"We must think over all the causes of destruction to each organism,--to the seed, the young shoot, the growing plant, the full-grown tree, or shrub, or herb, and again the fruit and seed; and among animals, to the egg or new-born young, to the youthful, and to the adults. Then, we must always bear in mind that what goes on in the case of the individual or family group we may observe or think of, goes on also among the millions and scores of millions of individuals which are comprised in almost every species; and must get rid of the idea that chance determines which shall live and which die.”—(Darwinism. pp. 122-3.)

There is a sense, no doubt, in which there is no such thing as accidental death. The theologian who realises the immanent presence of God in the universe may assert that "there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." But when Mr. Wallace says that there is no chance in the destruction which is in nature, the observation has no application to the present discussion-unless it means that all destruction is discriminative, which it certainly is not.

E

We have seen that Natural Selection has been variously interpretated as the survival of the fittest only, or as the elimination of the least fit. But whichever interpretation you adopt is not justified by the results of the action of death in the natural world. The facts of the case do not justify us in contending that the struggle for existence brings about even the elimination of the least fit.

Seedlings also," says Mr. Darwin, "are destroyed in vast numbers by various enemies. For instance, on a piece of ground, three feet long and two wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking from other plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up, and out of the 357 no less than 295 were destroyed chiefly by slugs and insects." Commenting on which passage, Mr. G. W. Bulman asks:-"Is there, then, anything to show that the 295 plants destroyed were less vigorous than the 62 survivors? There is no evidence or à priori argument to prove that slugs and insects choose for food the less vigorous seedlings. Putting oneself in their place the only method available in the absence of experimental knowledge of their tastes-we should say the more vigorous and better-grown would be chosen."*

But if we are not at liberty to assume that the elimination of the worst will take place, how much less can we be certain of the survival of the fittest! This, however, is not all. It sometimes happens that the struggle for existence produces the destruction of the best. The phrase, Aux bons meschet-il, embodies the conviction that sometimes, at any rate, the best men have the worst luck. There is safety sometimes in mediocrity. We are

"Happy, in that we are not over-happy;

On fortune's cap we are not the very button."
-(Hamlet, Act ii., sc. 2.)

*The National Review. vol. xviii., pp. 60-1.

If this principle can be shown to be true in the natural world, it contradicts one of the axioms of the theory as laid down by Mr. Wallace :

"Whatever is really the fittest can never be destroyed by Natural Selection, which is but another name for the survival of the fittest." -(Darwinism. p. 425.)

A few illustrations will serve to show that the struggle for existence sometimes leads to the destruction of the best and fittest. It is not credible, for example, that any animal feeding on nuts would nuts would carefully abstain from taking the best, or that it would conscientiously begin to eat the worst first, so that its posterity might reap the advantage in a finer growth of fruit. An evidently careful and genial student of nature tells us that the contrary took place with a red squirrel which he narrowly watched.

"One of these was the saucy red squirrel. He glided along the branches like a sunbeam, and constituted our dark-eyed miracle of the forest. He would watch our approach, then glide up the high hazel and survey us from above. Then he perked his ears and chattered, and once let down a full-ripe filbert close to our feet. From examining this we found how he came at its contents, and often watched him in the process. He would sit upon his haunches, half-hidden in the foliage, holding a cluster of nuts. These he held in his forepaws, and would presently abstract one, allowing the rest to drop. After adroitly securing the nut, he would quickly rasp away the small end, and, having made a hole, would then insert his foreteeth and split the shell. He only ate the largest and soundest nuts, and was careful to pare off every particle of the brown skin of the kernel before beginning to eat.”—(The Graphic. vol. xxxvi., p. 319.)

M. de Lanessan cites illustrations to the same effect.

"None of you will be ignorant of the terrible havoc which an unseasonable cold produces on fruit trees. The least hoar-frost occurring at the time when the shoots of the vine begin to expand is sufficient to destroy that year's vintage. An intense frost occurring at the same time would decree the death of the plant itself. Rains too prolonged would make the wheat to perish in the earth

too hot a sun would kill the young plant. What will be the consequences of these accidents? Are we able to apply to this case the law of Darwin, and to admit that in the struggle for existence which the vegetable sustains against the accidents of external conditions that is to say, against winds, rains, cold, heat-the result will always be the preservation of the strongest and fittest? I do not think so. The intensity of the derangements produced by these agents varies indeed, it is true, in a certain measure with the constitutional vigour of the vegetables attacked; but as the result of different conditions, it may very well occur that the most vigorous plants will be killed, while the feeblest resist. In the case of the vine, for example, as the stems of the most vigorous are those whose buds open first, they are those also which the spring frosts will kill.”— (La Lutte pour l'Existence et l'Association pour la Lutte. pp. 12-13.)

"Can we affirm," he elsewhere says, "that the most robust and best armed plants are also those which have the most chance of escaping the attacks of the different animals just mentioned? By no means. It is the accident of circumstances which exercises on the fate of vegetables with respect to herbivorous and granivorous animals the preponderating influence. This vigorous plant will be devoured by the caterpillars, while another of the same sort, much more feeble, will escape this danger. The first will have no offspring; the second, on the contrary, will perpetuate its race."-(p. 16.)

The same argument applies to animals no less than to plants. Whether Mr. Darwin's theory of Sexual Selection be sustained or not, there are certain broad facts which can scarcely be denied. Where there is a struggle between rivals, the strongest will win in the fight, barring accidents; and whether or not it be true that "none but the brave deserve the fair," the "brave" who wins the battle also wins a spouse. Hence it follows that among the expectant males which are looking forward to a new season of love and courtship, the most vigorous will win the day, and will carry off the more vigorous and better-nourished females who are ready to enter into courtship before their