THE WAY OF THE WILD 63 



retire to the rear, and the herd will accept the new leadership. 

 In this way only the very choicest and most vigorous survive 

 to head the herd. 



Natural selection. And so the competition goes on against 

 fire and flood and drought and cold ; against talon, tooth, and 

 claw, till the weakling goes to the wall. When there is not 

 enough for all, when the dinner of one means the death of 

 another, when the problems of life become reduced to the 

 elemental instincts of hunger and self-preservation, then 

 slaughter begins and death and extermination are everyday 

 employments. This is natural selection, or the weeding out of 

 the weakest. 



This reduction process of nature is not always attended with 

 violence and bloodshed, but is often silent and inconspicuous 

 though none the less relentless. The woodpecker digs his worm 

 out of his burrow in the timber, and only the longest and hardest 

 bill will provide enough when worms are scarce. This compe- 

 tition based on quality of bills is not conspicuous, but it is, after 

 all, direct and effective. 



A mass of vegetation of many species is growing on the 

 same area. 1 As none can move they all must stay and fight 

 it out together. Now is the struggle for room combined with 

 that for food, and it is a battle royal with no noise but with 

 plenty of fatalities. 2 



In this selective process the vigor of the conflict and the 

 intensity of the selection are much dependent upon conditions, 

 whether favorable or unfavorable to life in general. It might 

 seem at first that where conditions of life are least favorable, 



1 Try the experiment of counting the number of different things that can 

 be found growing together on a square yard of old turf. 



2 Read " The Battle in the Meadows," by Maxwell T. Masters. This fasci- 

 nating little book describes the effect upon the mixed herbage of an old park 

 at Rothamsted, England, when fertilizers of different kinds were applied. The 

 effect of each upon the struggle between the different species growing 

 together, some being favored by nitrogen, for example, and others by potas- 

 sium or by phosphorus, constitutes one of the most fascinating nature stories 

 ever written. 



