234 DARWIXIANISM. 



feathers of which can keenly ^grasp also. The life of 

 this bird being the running up and down old trees to 

 pick holes into them in pursuit of insects, which it hunts 

 and captures with its supple, long, gluey tongue, it is to 

 be regarded in itself as glaringly and conspicuously a 

 proof of the fact of natural selection ; for though possibly 

 <juite an ordinary bird at first, it has conceivably grown 

 into what it is a new species by propagated successive 

 advantages simply in pursuit of its business. 



Mr. Darwin's own words will confirm the picture. 

 " The facts which kept me longest scientifically ortho- 

 dox," he says (ii 121), "are those of adaptation the 

 woodpecker, with its feet and tail, beak and tongue, to 

 climb the tree and secure insects," etc. This is as much 

 as to say that he was long arrested by the problem of 

 design and we may now take together all that concerns 

 that problem in a chapter by itself. 



