DETERMINATION OF WHAT THE DARWINIAN THEORY TS. 233 



its fellows, and it will also transmit this advantage to 

 the descendants of itself. Strong-beaked, long-tongued 

 insect-feeders will now, evidently, constitute the rule; 

 but unfortunately, in course of time, there occurs a 

 dearth of fallen timber ; strength of beak and length of 

 tongue scarcely suffice any longer for more than the 

 scantiest and miserablest of existences. But see, one of 

 them gets born with sharper fore-claws than any one of 

 its brothers ; it is actually seen to ascend standing trees, 

 and, triumphantly tapping the bark, luxuriously to feed 

 on an all-abundant treasure and store of hitherto un- 

 reachable and unreached insects. Once again there can 

 be only one result, the birds that have blunt fore-claws 

 will gradually die off, and the sharp fore-claws will alone 

 remain. But even these come to be at a disadvantage 

 in the struggle for life. An individual is born that adds 

 on to the already existent sharp fore-claw actually ! 

 a sharp hind-claw. Consummation est ! the sharp fore- 

 claws must perish, for their time has come. But even 

 the triumphant hind-clawers have to suffer defeat in 

 their turn. There is born among them one who can 

 stick his tail, as well as his claws, into the tree, up 

 which he can run with an all-conquering swiftness. He 

 and his children simply starve out all the rest, and are 

 left alone at the last in the undisturbed possession of 

 every rotten tree in the forest. On every one of them 

 now there thrones as autocrat a Picus Superbus ! * 



This, the woodpecker, is a bird that, for the compli- 

 cated adaptations it exhibits, is absolutely unparalleled. 

 The bill is wedge-shaped and keen; the tongue long, 

 nimble, sharp, barbed or beset with bristles bent back- 

 wards, and coated viscid ; the claws are strong and 

 spiked to grasp even a perpendicular surface, and in this 

 they are supported by the tail, the stiff, pointed end- 

 1 Of course this conceivable story is not to be laid to Darwin. 



