Darwinism (1889) Part 2

Let us now consider a less extreme and more familiar case. We possess a considerable number of birds which, like the redbreast, sparrow, the four common t.i.tmice, the thrush, and the blackbird, stay with us all the year round These lay on an average six eggs, but, as several of them have two or more broods a year, ten will be below the average of the year's increase. Such birds as these often live from fifteen to twenty years in confinement, and we cannot suppose them to live shorter lives in a state of nature, if unmolested; but to avoid possible exaggeration we will take only ten years as the average duration of their lives. Now, if we start with a single pair, and these are allowed to live and breed, unmolested, till they die at the end of ten years,--as they might do if turned loose into a good-sized island with ample vegetable and insect food, but no other competing or destructive birds or quadrupeds--their numbers would amount to more than twenty millions. But we know very well that our bird population is no greater, on the average, now than it was ten years ago. Year by year it may fluctuate a little according as the winters are more or less severe, or from other causes, but on the whole there is no increase. What, then, becomes of the enormous surplus population annually produced? It is evident they must all die or be killed, somehow; and as the increase is, on the average, about five to one, it follows that, if the average number of birds of all kinds in our islands is taken at ten millions--and this is probably far under the mark--then about fifty millions of birds, including eggs as possible birds, must annually die or be destroyed. Yet we see nothing, or almost nothing, of this tremendous slaughter of the innocents going on all around us. In severe winters a few birds are found dead, and a few feathers or mangled remains show us where a wood-pigeon or some other bird has been destroyed by a hawk, but no one would imagine that five times as many birds as the total number in the country in early spring die every year. No doubt a considerable proportion of these do not die here but during or after migration to other countries, but others which are bred in distant countries come here, and thus balance the account.

Again, as the average number of young produced is four or five times that of the parents, we ought to have at least five times as many birds in the country at the end of summer as at the beginning, and there is certainly no such enormous disproportion as this. The fact is, that the destruction commences, and is probably most severe, with nestling birds, which are often killed by heavy rains or blown away by severe storms, or left to die of hunger if either of the parents is killed; while they offer a defenceless prey to jackdaws, jays, and magpies, and not a few are ejected from their nests by their foster-brothers the cuckoos. As soon as they are fledged and begin to leave the nest great numbers are destroyed by buzzards, sparrow-hawks, and shrikes. Of those which migrate in autumn a considerable proportion are probably lost at sea or otherwise destroyed before they reach a place of safety; while those which remain with us are greatly thinned by cold and starvation during severe winters. Exactly the same thing goes on with every species of wild animal and plant from the lowest to the highest. All breed at such a rate, that in a few years the progeny of any one species would, if allowed to increase unchecked, alone monopolise the land; but all alike are kept within bounds by various destructive agencies, so that, though the numbers of each may fluctuate, they can never permanently increase except at the expense of some others, which must proportionately decrease.

_Cases showing the Great Powers of Increase of Animals._

As the facts now stated are the very foundation of the theory we are considering, and the enormous increase and perpetual destruction continually going on require to be kept ever present in the mind, some direct evidence of actual cases of increase must be adduced. That even the larger animals, which breed comparatively slowly, increase enormously when placed under favourable conditions in new countries, is shown by the rapid spread of cattle and horses in America. Columbus, in his second voyage, left a few black cattle at St. Domingo, and these ran wild and increased so much that, twenty-seven years afterwards, herds of from 4000 to 8000 head were not uncommon. Cattle were afterwards taken from this island to Mexico and to other parts of America, and in 1587, sixty-five years after the conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards exported 64,350 hides from that country and 35,444 from St. Domingo, an indication of the vast numbers of these animals which must then have existed there, since those captured and killed could have been only a small portion of the whole. In the pampas of Buenos Ayres there were, at the end of the last century, about twelve million cows and three million horses, besides great numbers in all other parts of America where open pastures offered suitable conditions. a.s.ses, about fifty years after their introduction, ran wild and multiplied so amazingly in Quito, that the Spanish traveller Ulloa describes them as being a nuisance. They grazed together in great herds, defending themselves with their mouths, and if a horse strayed among them they all fell upon him and did not cease biting and kicking till they left him dead. Hogs were turned out in St. Domingo by Columbus in 1493, and the Spaniards took them to other places where they settled, the result being, that in about half a century these animals were found in great numbers over a large part of America, from 25 north to 40 south lat.i.tude. More recently, in New Zealand, pigs have multiplied so greatly in a wild state as to be a serious nuisance and injury to agriculture. To give some idea of their numbers, it is stated that in the province of Nelson there were killed in twenty months 25,000 wild pigs.[10] Now, in the case of all these animals, we know that in their native countries, and even in America at the present time, they do not increase at all in numbers; therefore the whole normal increase must be kept down, year by year, by natural or artificial means of destruction.

_Rapid Increase and Wide Spread of Plants_.

In the case of plants, the power of increase is even greater and its effects more distinctly visible. Hundreds of square miles of the plains of La Plata are now covered with two or three species of European thistle, often to the exclusion of almost every other plant; but in the native countries of these thistles they occupy, except in cultivated or waste ground, a very subordinate part in the vegetation. Some American plants, like the cotton-weed (Asclepias cuiussayica), have now become common weeds over a large portion of the tropics. White clover (Trifolium repens) spreads over all the temperate regions of the world, and in New Zealand is exterminating many native species, including even the native flax (Phormium tenax), a large plant with iris-like leaves 5 or 6 feet high. Mr. W.L. Travers has paid much attention to the effects of introduced plants in New Zealand, and notes the following species as being especially remarkable. The common knotgra.s.s (Polygonum aviculare) grows most luxuriantly, single plants covering a s.p.a.ce 4 or 5 feet in diameter, and sending their roots 3 or 4 feet deep. A large sub-aquatic dock (Rumex obtusifolius) abounds in every river-bed, even far up among the mountains. The common sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) grows all over the country up to an elevation of 6000 feet. The water-cress (Nasturtium officinale) grows with amazing vigour in many of the rivers, forming stems 12 feet long and 3/4 inch in diameter, and completely choking them up. It cost 300 a year to keep the Avon at Christchurch free from it.

The sorrel (Rumex acetosella) covers hundreds of acres with a sheet of red. It forms a dense mat, exterminating other plants, and preventing cultivation. It can, however, be itself exterminated by sowing the ground with red clover, which will also vanquish the Polygonum aviculare. The most noxious weed in New Zealand appears, however, to be the Hypochaeris radicata, a coa.r.s.e yellow-flowered composite not uncommon in our meadows and waste places. This has been introduced with gra.s.s seeds from England, and is very destructive. It is stated that excellent pasture was in three years destroyed by this weed, which absolutely displaced every other plant on the ground. It grows in every kind of soil, and is said even to drive out the white clover, which is usually so powerful in taking possession of the soil.

In Australia another composite plant, called there the Cape-weed (Cryptostemma calendulaceum), did much damage, and was noticed by Baron Von Hugel in 1833 as "an unexterminable weed"; but, after forty years'

occupation, it was found to give way to the dense herbage formed by lucerne and choice gra.s.ses.

In Ceylon we are told by Mr. Thwaites, in his _Enumeration of Ceylon Plants_, that a plant introduced into the island less than fifty years ago is helping to alter the character of the vegetation up to an elevation of 3000 feet. This is the Lantana mixta, a verbenaceous plant introduced from the West Indies, which appears to have found in Ceylon a soil and climate exactly suited to it. It now covers thousands of acres with its dense ma.s.ses of foliage, taking complete possession of land where cultivation has been neglected or abandoned, preventing the growth of any other plants, and even destroying small trees, the tops of which its subscandent stems are able to reach. The fruit of this plant is so acceptable to frugivorous birds of all kinds that, through their instrumentality, it is spreading rapidly, to the complete exclusion of the indigenous vegetation where it becomes established.

_Great Fertility not essential to Rapid Increase_.

The not uncommon circ.u.mstance of slow-breeding animals being very numerous, shows that it is usually the amount of destruction which an animal or plant is exposed to, not its rapid multiplication, that determines its numbers in any country. The pa.s.senger-pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is, or rather was, excessively abundant in a certain area in North America, and its enormous migrating flocks darkening the sky for hours have often been described; yet this bird lays only two eggs.

The fulmar petrel exists in myriads at St. Kilda and other haunts of the species, yet it lays only one egg. On the other hand the great shrike, the tree-creeper, the nut-hatch, the nut-cracker, the hoopoe, and many other birds, lay from four to six or seven eggs, and yet are never abundant. So in plants, the abundance of a species bears little or no relation to its seed-producing power. Some of the gra.s.ses and sedges, the wild hyacinth, and many b.u.t.tercups occur in immense profusion over extensive areas, although each plant produces comparatively few seeds; while several species of bell-flowers, gentians, pinks, and mulleins, and even some of the composite, which produce an abundance of minute seeds, many of which are easily scattered by the wind, are yet rare species that never spread beyond a very limited area.

The above-mentioned pa.s.senger-pigeon affords such an excellent example of an enormous bird-population kept up by a comparatively slow rate of increase, and in spite of its complete helplessness and the great destruction which it suffers from its numerous enemies, that the following account of one of its breeding-places and migrations by the celebrated American naturalist, Alexander Wilson, will be read with interest:--

"Not far from Shelbyville, in the State of Kentucky, about five years ago, there was one of these breeding-places, which stretched through the woods in nearly a north and south direction, was several miles in breadth, and was said to be upwards of 40 miles in extent. In this tract almost every tree was furnished with nests wherever the branches could accommodate them. The pigeons made their first appearance there about the 10th of April, and left it altogether with their young before the 25th of May. As soon as the young were fully grown and before they left the nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants from all parts of the adjacent country came with waggons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery. Several of them informed me that the noise was so great as to terrify their horses, and that it was difficult for one person to hear another without bawling in his ear. The ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buzzards, and eagles were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from the nests at pleasure; while, from 20 feet upwards to the top of the trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering mult.i.tudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber; for now the axemen were at work cutting down those trees that seemed most crowded with nests, and contrived to fell them in such a manner, that in their descent they might bring down several others; by which means the falling of one large tree sometimes produced 200 squabs little inferior in size to the old birds, and almost one heap of fat. On some single trees upwards of a hundred nests were found, each containing one squab only; a circ.u.mstance in the history of the bird not generally known to naturalists.[11] It was dangerous to walk under these flying and fluttering millions, from the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the weight of the mult.i.tudes above, and which in their descent often destroyed numbers of the birds themselves; while the clothes of those engaged in traversing the woods were completely covered with the excrements of the pigeons.

"These circ.u.mstances were related to me by many of the most respectable part of the community in that quarter, and were confirmed in part by what I myself witnessed. I pa.s.sed for several miles through this same breeding-place, where every tree was spotted with nests, the remains of those above described. In many instances I counted upwards of ninety nests on a single tree; but the pigeons had abandoned this place for another, 60 or 80 miles off, towards Green River, where they were said at that time to be equally numerous. From the great numbers that were constantly pa.s.sing over our heads to or from that quarter, I had no doubt of the truth of this statement. The mast had been chiefly consumed in Kentucky; and the pigeons, every morning a little before sunrise, set out for the Indiana territory, the nearest part of which was about sixty miles distant. Many of these returned before ten o'clock, and the great body generally appeared on their return a little after noon. I had left the public road to visit the remains of the breeding-place near Shelbyville, and was traversing the woods with my gun, on my way to Frankfort, when about ten o'clock the pigeons which I had observed flying the greater part of the morning northerly, began to return in such immense numbers as I never before had witnessed. Coming to an opening by the side of a creek, where I had a more uninterrupted view, I was astonished at their appearance: they were flying with great steadiness and rapidity, at a height beyond gunshot, in several strata deep, and so close together that, could shot have reached them, one discharge could not have failed to bring down several individuals. From right to left, as far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast procession extended, seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious to determine how long this appearance would continue, I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down to observe them. It was then half-past one; I sat for more than an hour, but instead of a diminution of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to increase, both in numbers and rapidity; and anxious to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. About four o'clock in the afternoon I crossed Kentucky River, at the town of Frankfort, at which time the living torrent above my head seemed as numerous and as extensive as ever. Long after this I observed them in large bodies that continued to pa.s.s for six or eight minutes, and these again were followed by other detached bodies, all moving in the same south-east direction, till after six o'clock in the evening. The great breadth of front which this mighty mult.i.tude preserved would seem to intimate a corresponding breadth of their breeding-place, which, by several gentlemen who had lately pa.s.sed through part of it, was stated to me at several miles."

From these various observations, Wilson calculated that the number of birds contained in the ma.s.s of pigeons which he saw on this occasion was at least two thousand millions, while this was only one of many similar aggregations known to exist in various parts of the United States. The picture here given of these defenceless birds, and their still more defenceless young, exposed to the attacks of numerous rapacious enemies, brings vividly before us one of the phases of the unceasing struggle for existence ever going on; but when we consider the slow rate of increase of these birds, and the enormous population they are nevertheless able to maintain, we must be convinced that in the case of the majority of birds which multiply far more rapidly, and yet are never able to attain such numbers, the struggle against their numerous enemies and against the adverse forces of nature must be even more severe or more continuous.

_Struggle for Life between, closely allied Animals and Plants often the most severe._

The struggle we have hitherto been considering has been mainly that between an animal or plant and its direct enemies, whether these enemies are other animals which devour it, or the forces of nature which destroy it. But there is another kind of struggle often going on at the same time between closely related species, which almost always terminates in the destruction of one of them. As an example of what is meant, Darwin states that the recent increase of the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the song-thrush.[12] The black rat (Mus rattus) was the common rat of Europe till, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the large brown rat (Mus dec.u.ma.n.u.s) appeared on the Lower Volga, and thence spread more or less rapidly till it overran all Europe, and generally drove out the black rat, which in most parts is now comparatively rare or quite extinct. This invading rat has now been carried by commerce all over the world, and in New Zealand has completely extirpated a native rat, which the Maoris allege they brought with them from their home in the Pacific; and in the same country a native fly is being supplanted by the European house-fly. In Russia the small Asiatic c.o.c.kroach has driven away a larger native species; and in Australia the imported hive-bee is exterminating the small stingless native bee.

The reason why this kind of struggle goes on is apparent if we consider that the allied species fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature. They require nearly the same kind of food, are exposed to the same enemies and the same dangers. Hence, if one has ever so slight an advantage over the other in procuring food or in avoiding danger, in its rapidity of multiplication or its tenacity of life, it will increase more rapidly, and by that very fact will cause the other to decrease and often become altogether extinct. In some cases, no doubt, there is actual war between the two, the stronger killing the weaker; but this is by no means necessary, and there may be cases in which the weaker species, physically, may prevail, by its power of more rapid multiplication, its better withstanding vicissitudes of climates, or its greater cunning in escaping the attacks of the common enemies. The same principle is seen at work in the fact that certain mountain varieties of sheep will starve out other mountain varieties, so that the two cannot be kept together. In plants the same thing occurs. If several distinct varieties of wheat are sown together, and the mixed seed resown, some of the varieties which best suit the soil and climate, or are naturally the most fertile, will beat the others and so yield more seed, and will consequently in a few years supplant the other varieties.

As an effect of this principle, we seldom find closely allied species of animals or plants living together, but often in distinct though adjacent districts where the conditions of life are somewhat different.

Thus we may find cowslips (Primula veris) growing in a meadow, and primroses (P. vulgaris) in an adjoining wood, each in abundance, but not often intermingled. And for the same reason the old turf of a pasture or heath consists of a great variety of plants matted together, so much so that in a patch little more than a yard square Mr. Darwin found twenty distinct species, belonging to eighteen distinct genera and to eight natural orders, thus showing their extreme diversity of organisation.

For the same reason a number of distinct gra.s.ses and clovers are sown in order to make a good lawn instead of any one species; and the quant.i.ty of hay produced has been found to be greater from a variety of very distinct gra.s.ses than from any one species of gra.s.s.

It may be thought that forests are an exception to this rule, since in the north-temperate and arctic regions we find extensive forests of pines or of oaks. But these are, after all, exceptional, and characterise those regions only where the climate is little favourable to forest vegetation. In the tropical and all the warm temperate parts of the earth, where there is a sufficient supply of moisture, the forests present the same variety of species as does the turf of our old pastures; and in the equatorial virgin forests there is so great a variety of forms, and they are so thoroughly intermingled, that the traveller often finds it difficult to discover a second specimen of any particular species which he has noticed. Even the forests of the temperate zones, in all favourable situations, exhibit a considerable variety of trees of distinct genera and families, and it is only when we approach the outskirts of forest vegetation, where either drought or winds or the severity of the winter is adverse to the existence of most trees, that we find extensive tracts monopolised by one or two species.

Even Canada has more than sixty different forest trees and the Eastern United States a hundred and fifty; Europe is rather poor, containing about eighty trees only; while the forests of Eastern Asia, j.a.pan, and Manchuria are exceedingly rich, about a hundred and seventy species being already known. And in all these countries the trees grow intermingled, so that in every extensive forest we have a considerable variety, as may be seen in the few remnants of our primitive woods in some parts of Epping Forest and the New Forest.

Among animals the same law prevails, though, owing to their constant movements and power of concealment, it is not so readily observed. As ill.u.s.trations we may refer to the wolf, ranging over Europe and Northern Asia, while the jackal inhabits Southern Asia and Northern Africa; the tree-porcupines, of which there are two closely allied species, one inhabiting the eastern, the other the western half of North America; the common hare (Lepus timidus) in Central and Southern Europe, while all Northern Europe is inhabited by the variable hare (Lepus variabilis); the common jay (Garrulus glandarius) inhabiting all Europe, while another species (Garrulus Brandti) is found all across Asia from the Urals to j.a.pan; and many species of birds in the Eastern United States are replaced by closely allied species in the west. Of course there are also numbers of closely related species in the same country, but it will almost always be found that they frequent different stations and have somewhat different habits, and so do not come into direct compet.i.tion with each other; just as closely allied plants may inhabit the same districts, when one prefers meadows the other woods, one a chalky soil the other sand, one a damp situation the other a dry one. With plants, fixed as they are to the earth, we easily note these peculiarities of station; but with wild animals, which we see only on rare occasions, it requires close and long-continued observation to detect the peculiarities in their mode of life which may prevent all direct compet.i.tion between closely allied species dwelling in the same area.

_The Ethical Aspect of the Struggle for Existence_.

Our exposition of the phenomena presented by the struggle for existence may be fitly concluded by a few remarks on its ethical aspect. Now that the war of nature is better known, it has been dwelt upon by many writers as presenting so vast an amount of cruelty and pain as to be revolting to our instincts of humanity, while it has proved a stumbling-block in the way of those who would fain believe in an all-wise and benevolent ruler of the universe. Thus, a brilliant writer says: "Pain, grief, disease, and death, are these the inventions of a loving G.o.d? That no animal shall rise to excellence except by being fatal to the life of others, is this the law of a kind Creator? It is useless to say that pain has its benevolence, that ma.s.sacre has its mercy. Why is it so ordained that bad should be the raw material of good? Pain is not the less pain because it is useful; murder is not less murder because it is conducive to development. Here is blood upon the hand still, and all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten it."[13]

Even so thoughtful a writer as Professor Huxley adopts similar views. In a recent article on "The Struggle for Existence" he speaks of the myriads of generations of herbivorous animals which "have been tormented and devoured by carnivores"; of the carnivores and herbivores alike "subject to all the miseries incidental to old age, disease, and over-multiplication"; and of the "more or less enduring suffering,"

which is the meed of both vanquished and victor. And he concludes that, since thousands of times a minute, were our ears sharp enough, we should hear sighs and groans of pain like those heard by Dante at the gate of h.e.l.l, the world cannot be governed by what we call benevolence.[14]

Now there is, I think, good reason to believe that all this is greatly exaggerated; that the supposed "torments" and "miseries" of animals have little real existence, but are the reflection of the imagined sensations of cultivated men and women in similar circ.u.mstances; and that the amount of actual suffering caused by the struggle for existence among animals is altogether insignificant. Let us, therefore, endeavour to ascertain what are the real facts on which these tremendous accusations are founded.

In the first place, we must remember that animals are entirely spared the pain we suffer in the antic.i.p.ation of death--a pain far greater, in most cases, than the reality. This leads, probably, to an almost perpetual enjoyment of their lives; since their constant watchfulness against danger, and even their actual flight from an enemy, will be the enjoyable exercise of the powers and faculties they possess, unmixed with any serious dread. There is, in the next place, much evidence to show that violent deaths, if not too prolonged, are painless and easy; even in the case of man, whose nervous system is in all probability much more susceptible to pain than that of most animals. In all cases in which persons have escaped after being seized by a lion or tiger, they declare that they suffered little or no pain, physical or mental. A well-known instance is that of Livingstone, who thus describes his sensations when seized by a lion: "Starting and looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing on me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It causes a sort of dreaminess, _in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror_, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife.

This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast."

This absence of pain is not peculiar to those seized by wild beasts, but is equally produced by any accident which causes a general shock to the system. Mr. Whymper describes an accident to himself during one of his preliminary explorations of the Matterhorn, when he fell several hundred feet, bounding from rock to rock, till fortunately embedded in a snow-drift near the edge of a tremendous precipice. He declares that while falling and feeling blow after blow, he neither lost consciousness nor suffered pain, merely thinking, calmly, that a few more blows would finish him. We have therefore a right to conclude, that when death follows soon after any great shock it is as easy and painless a death as possible; and this is certainly what happens when an animal is seized by a beast of prey. For the enemy is one which hunts for food, not for pleasure or excitement; and it is doubtful whether any carnivorous animal in a state of nature begins to seek after prey till driven to do so by hunger. When an animal is caught, therefore, it is very soon devoured, and thus the first shock is followed by an almost painless death. Neither do those which die of cold or hunger suffer much. Cold is generally severest at night and has a tendency to produce sleep and painless extinction. Hunger, on the other hand, is hardly felt during periods of excitement, and when food is scarce the excitement of seeking for it is at its greatest. It is probable, also, that when hunger presses, most animals will devour anything to stay their hunger, and will die of gradual exhaustion and weakness not necessarily painful, if they do not fall an earlier prey to some enemy or to cold.[15]

Now let us consider what are the enjoyments of the lives of most animals. As a rule they come into existence at a time of year when food is most plentiful and the climate most suitable, that is in the spring of the temperate zone and at the commencement of the dry season in the tropics. They grow vigorously, being supplied with abundance of food; and when they reach maturity their lives are a continual round of healthy excitement and exercise, alternating with complete repose. The daily search for the daily food employs all their faculties and exercises every organ of their bodies, while this exercise leads to the satisfaction of all their physical needs. In our own case, we can give no more perfect definition of happiness, than this exercise and this satisfaction; and we must therefore conclude that animals, as a rule, enjoy all the happiness of which they are capable. And this normal state of happiness is not alloyed, as with us, by long periods--whole lives often--of poverty or ill-health, and of the unsatisfied longing for pleasures which others enjoy but to which we cannot attain. Illness, and what answers to poverty in animals--continued hunger--are quickly followed by unantic.i.p.ated and almost painless extinction. Where we err is, in giving to animals feelings and emotions which they do not possess. To us the very sight of blood and of torn or mangled limbs is painful, while the idea of the suffering implied by it is heartrending.

We have a horror of all violent and sudden death, because we think of the life full of promise cut short, of hopes and expectations unfulfilled, and of the grief of mourning relatives. But all this is quite out of place in the case of animals, for whom a violent and a sudden death is in every way the best. Thus the poet's picture of

"Nature red in tooth and claw With ravine"

is a picture the evil of which is read into it by our imaginations, the reality being made up of full and happy lives, usually terminated by the quickest and least painful of deaths.

On the whole, then, we conclude that the popular idea of the struggle for existence entailing misery and pain on the animal world is the very reverse of the truth. What it really brings about, is, the maximum of life and of the enjoyment of life with the minimum of suffering and pain. Given the necessity of death and reproduction--and without these there could have been no progressive development of the organic world,--and it is difficult even to imagine a system by which a greater balance of happiness could have been secured. And this view was evidently that of Darwin himself, who thus concludes his chapter on the struggle for existence: "When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: _Geographic Botanique_, p. 798.]

[Footnote 5: _The Origin of Species_, p. 53.]

[Footnote 6: _The Earth as Modified by Human Action_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 7: _The Origin of Species_, p. 56.]

[Footnote 8: See _Nature_, vol. x.x.xi. p. 63.]

[Footnote 9: _A Visit to South America_, 1878; also _Nature_, vol. x.x.xi.

pp. 263-339.]

[Footnote 10: Still more remarkable is the increase of rabbits both in New Zealand and Australia. No less than seven millions of rabbit-skins have been exported from the former country in a single year, their value being 67,000. In both countries, sheep-runs have been greatly deteriorated in value by the abundance of rabbits, which destroy the herbage; and in some cases they have had to be abandoned altogether.]

[Footnote 11: Later observers have proved that two eggs are laid and usually two young produced, but it may be that in most cases only one of these comes to maturity.]

[Footnote 12: _Origin of Species_, p. 59. Professor A. Newton, however, informs me that these species do not interfere with one another in the way here stated.]

[Footnote 13: Winwood Reade's _Martyrdom of Man,_ p. 520.]

[Footnote 14: _Nineteenth Century,_ February 1888, pp. 162, 163.]