228 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



here is clearly a slip, and nothing else ; but it is one 

 which brings him for the moment into the very error 

 into which his grandson has fallen more disastrously. 



"Another great want," he continues, "consists in 

 the means of procuring food, which has diversified the 

 forms of all species of animals. Thus the nose of the 

 swine has become hard for the purpose of turning up 

 the soil in search of insects and of roots. The trunk of 

 the elephant is an elongation of the nose for the 

 purpose of pulling down the branches of trees for his 

 food, and for taking up water without bending his knees. 

 Beasts of prey have acquired strong jaws or talons. 

 Cattle have acquired a rough tongue and a rough 

 palate to pull off the blades of grass, as cows and sheep. 

 Some birds have acquired harder beaks to crack nuts, 

 as the parrot. Others have acquired beaks to break the 

 harder seeds, as sparrows. Others for the softer kinds 

 of flowers, or the buds of trees, as the finches. Other 

 birds have acquired long beaks to penetrate themoister 

 soils in search of insects or roots, as woodcocks, and 

 others broad ones to filtrate the water of lakes and to 

 retain aquatic insects. All which seem to have been 

 gradually produced during many generations by the 

 perpetual endeavour of the creature to supply the want of 

 food, and to have been delivered to their posterity with 

 constant improvement of them for the purposes required. 



"The third great want among animals is that of 

 security, which seems to have diversified the forms of 

 their bodies and the colour of them ; these consist in 

 the means of escaping other animals more powerful 

 than themselves. Hence some animals have acquired 



