TRANSMUTABLE. 253 



feast. Presently, however, they will begin to 

 feed upon the honey-dew, moving their antennae 

 with great rapidity; and during the time they 

 are running, about the aphides go on excreting 

 as usual, but neither more or less. Try the 

 same experiment with a similar fruit covered 

 with sugar, and the antennae of the ants will 

 move just as fast. If the excretion does not 

 fall off the fruit or leaf, it sinks down among 

 the flock, and is lost to sight, producing there 

 the well-known honey- dew, which is the nidus 

 of fungi, and hence of many well-known diseases. 

 The supposition that the aphis will wait for 

 several hours to perform a natural excretion, 

 and that either they expect to be tickled by 

 the antennae of ants, or that the ants have the 

 slightest intention of doing anything of the kind, 

 is a delusion which anyone may dispel for him- 

 self by a very simple observation. 



I have now brought the remarks which I have 

 to offer upon this book, to a close. The subject 

 is far from being exhausted, but I think the 

 time is not far off when everybody will have had 

 enough of "natural selection." 



I can truly say, that I am sorry that the book 

 was ever written, for its effect must be to di- 

 minish the fame of its author, and to unsettle 

 the mind of the public about scientific pursuits. 

 The "Vestiges," to say the least, attributed the 

 alteration of species to a distinct act of the Di- 

 vine will. Lamarck gave us something by which 

 we could carry on the changes with the theory. 



