208 DARWINIANI8M. 



vora, how is it that any of the s latter are left ? Is not 

 that what you mean by the struggle that this conquers 

 that ? the strong the weak, etc ? In the course of a 

 struggle, is it really the weak that you would expect to 

 prevail ? In a state of nature it is that that again and 

 again surprises the abundance of the food. We shall 

 presently find Mr. Darwin himself to remark upon it. 

 Even in the very lowest strata, the " confervae and ani- 

 malcula " that feed swarm, countlessly swarm ; nor in the 

 ascent of the scale does the relative proportion in essen- 

 tials cease. Take the passenger pigeon of North America, 

 for example ; " it breeds in such immense numbers as to 

 darken the air for a considerable period when the flock 

 takes to flight." Cooper, in one of his novels, gives a 

 most vivid description of these immense numbers. " The 

 air is filled with them, rising layer over layer, in one 

 solid blue mass that the eye cannot see the end of." As 

 possible raptores for these man apart we can find 

 Cooper to talk, in the same neighbourhood, only of two 

 eagles. With nature so prolific of life, what call is there 

 for a struggle ? what need ? 



Mr. Warburton Pike, in his The Barren Ground of 

 Northern Canada, gives a striking picture of the numbers 

 as well as tameness of the animals that migrate south- 

 wards before the approaching cold. All the south side of 

 Mackay Lake, which is a hundred miles long, was alive, 

 he says, " with moving beasts, while the ice seemed to 

 be dotted all over with black islands, and still away on 

 the northern shore, with the aid of glasses, we could see 

 them coming like regiments on the march ; " " they were 

 very tame, and on several occasions I found myself right 

 in the middle of a band." We may append the same 

 moral to the great variety of birds which Dr. Macgregor 

 describes as following the steamship on his voyage to 

 Australia. 



