74 SPECIES NOT 



Arid let us look for a moment at the other 

 illustrations. 



Imagine that certain wolves lived in a country 

 with certain deer and other small fry, on 

 which they fed. That a certain alteration took 

 place in the climate for a year or so, which 

 destroyed the small game, but left the deer; and 

 Mr. Darwin thinks it quite possible that all 

 but the swift wolves in consequence perished, 

 because they only could catch the deer. Hence 

 their descendants were altered or varied by being 

 a swifter race than the former wolf. AVhat he 

 gains by the sum of all these suppositions I am 

 at a loss to imagine. He only gets a swifter 

 wolf, which he very well knows, is as likely to 

 have a slow as a swift progeny. It does not 

 help his transmutation theory at all, for unfor- 

 tunately the animals among the carnivora, more 

 highly organized than the wolf, are the hyamas, 

 lions, tigers, cats, etc. The illustration therefore 

 is unfortunate. 



AVith regard to the innate tendency of the 

 cub-wolf to pursue certain kinds of prey being 

 born, in fact, with a peculiar tendency to "deer 

 stealing" this mere supposition, if it were even 

 proved by the illustration taken from domesticated 

 animals, to wit, Mr. St. John's cats, would after 

 all only prove the fact that one wolf could run 

 faster than another. 



With regard to the fourth illustration, the 

 alteration of the sexual condition of plants by 

 bees, as an instance of natural selection, it is like 



