16 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



competition for food, in the constant struggle for 

 existence, none perish from internecine strife ? " 



"Not quite that," I said, "but very few, an 

 inappreciable amount when their numbers are taken 

 into account. The known phenomena of feral life 

 warrant me in saying so much." 



" Do you believe, then," asked my friend, " that 

 starvation does not act as an eliminating factor in the 

 haunts of the tiger ? " 



" Neither," I replied, " in the haunts of the tiger nor 

 in the haunts of any carnivorous creature. Will you, 

 on your part, answer me this question ? If you think 

 it to be really the case that a struggle for existence 

 prevails such as Darwin affirms must necessarily take 

 place in feral life, a struggle of each individual 

 striving either with others of his own or of other 

 kinds, and if, as the inevitable result of this struggle, 

 nine out of every ten of carnivorous animals perish 

 either by starvation, or by the claws and teeth of their 

 own or of other species, do you not suppose that every 

 haunt of wild animals would exhibit manifold traces 

 and signs of such dire and continuous slaughter as 

 was being enacted in them ? Can you conceive it to 

 be possible that the testimony of every observant 

 frequenter of the forest, the jungle, and the desert 

 would be that they come upon no cases of famished 

 animals, and but very few of carnivora done to death 

 by carnivora? Would not every mountain tract, 

 every jungle, every desert home of feral life, abound 

 in such visible evidences of the demoniac struggle for 



