no PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION 



established Sequoia. But the very success of this remarkable 

 species must have almost put an end to further development, 

 unless accidental causes of death -were frequently at work. If 

 Sequoias were allowed to live to the natural term of their exist- 

 ence the seeds scattered in the forest would be many or most of 

 them the sisters of those scattered more than a thousand years 

 ago. What hope was there, then, of the working of Natural 

 Selection, of the gradual accumulation of small favourable varia- 

 tions ? The Sequoias, in fact, conspired to put a stop to evolu- 

 tion with all its abominable machinery, internecine war and 

 elimination. And they succeeded in putting the drag on, but 

 the coach was not stopped altogether, for on the label beneath 

 the section we read that the Sequoia and the Red-wood are the 

 only surviving members of a genus which was represented in the 

 English flora by several species in Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 times. For some reason or other such long-lived trees were not 

 able to appropriate the whole land area of the earth as their 

 territory. In other regions other trees competed and developed 

 excellencies other than longevity. Thus fortified, when at 

 length a Sequoia succumbed to age or to a great fire, they cut 

 in and established themselves. That for over thirteen hundred 

 years no conflagration occurred to cut short the career of the 

 giant Sequoia seems to point to some peculiarity of situation. 



The Sequoia is only the most conspicuous illustration of a 

 tendency. All the species of long-lived plants trust greatly to 

 the fixity and longevity of the individual. It is true that some, 

 such as the horse-chestnut and the lime, have beautiful or sweet- 

 scented flowers such as appeal to insects, and that very many 

 have means of scattering their seeds. But these excellencies 

 we must hold were attained during a previous period of short- 

 lived generations. 



Is there among animals any phenomenon at all similar to this 

 attempt, so to speak, by sheer longevity to make further evolu- 

 tion needless for the species ? At South Kensington is to be 

 seen a gigantic land-tortoise from Aldabra. Its weight was 

 870 Ibs. When it was killed it was known to be eighty years 

 old and it was still growing. This I learn from the label. 



