6 SELECTION 



climate adapting woodpecker l to crawl (?) up trees, 

 (illegible) miseltoe, (sentence incomplete). But if 

 every part of a plant or animal was to vary (il- 

 legible), and if a being infinitely more sagacious than 

 man (not an omniscient creator) during thousands 

 and thousands of years were to select all the varia- 

 tions which tended towards certain ends ([or were 

 to produce causes (?) which tended to the same end]), 

 for instance, if he foresaw a canine animal would be 

 better off, owing to the country producing more 

 hares, if he were longer legged and keener sight,- 

 greyhound produced 2 . If he saw that aquatic 

 (animal would need) skinned toes. If for some 

 unknown cause he found it would advantage a plant, 

 which (?) like most plants is occasionally visited by 

 bees &c.: if that plant's seed were occasionally 

 eaten by birds and were then carried on to rotten 

 trees, he might select trees with fruit more agreeable 

 to such birds as perched, to ensure their being 

 carried to trees; if he perceived those birds more 

 often dropped the seeds, he might well have selected 

 a bird who would (illegible) rotten trees or [gradually 

 select plants which (he) had proved to live on less 

 and less rotten trees]. Who, seeing how plants vary in 

 garden, what blind foolish man has done 3 in a few 

 years, will deny an all-seeing being in thousands of 

 years could effect (if the Creator chose to do so), 

 either by his own direct foresight or by intermediate 

 means, which will represent (?) the creator of this 

 universe. Seems usual means. Be it remembered 

 I have nothing to say about life and mind and all 



1 The author may possibly have taken the case of the woodpecker from 

 Buffou, Histoire Nat. des Oiseaux, T. vii. p. 3, 1780, where however it is 

 treated from a different point of view. He uses it more than once, see for 

 instance Origin, Ed. i. pp. 3, 60, 184, vi. pp. 3, 76, 220. The passage in 

 the text corresponds with a discussion on the woodpecker and the mistletoe 

 in Origin, Ed. i. p. 3, vi. p. 3. 



- This illustration occurs in the Origin, Ed. i. pp. 90, 91, vi. pp. 110, 111. 



3 See Origin, Ed. i. p. 83, vi. p. 102, where the word Creator is replaced 

 by Nature. 



