i8 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



your position. You affirm that the production of 

 your 200 tigers amounts in their generation to 

 2100 individuals, of which all but 200 are 

 eliminated before they become producers of offspring. 

 You deny that there is such an intercidal struggle 

 for existence as Darwin has posited, which you say 

 could not fail to be visibly in evidence in the case of 

 all carnivorous species, and which you affirm is visible 

 in the case of none of them. You affirm, too, that 

 starvation is never normally for I presume you mean 

 normally an agent in the elimination of the excess of 

 reproduction." 



" You have stated my position correctly," I returned, 

 " to wit, that the elimination of such a vast number 

 of food-seekers, as Darwin's theory of the struggle 

 for existence requires to be eliminated, is absolutely 

 contradicted by the phenomena of feral existence ; 

 and moreover that it is at manifest variance witli 

 the conditions that prevail in it, and with the 

 obvious fact that the normal population of each 

 species in the jungle, the forest, and the desert 

 remains constantly at the same point, while the 

 young carnivora at no time seem to be more numerous 

 than the adults." 



My friend here broke in : " When you interrupted 

 me, I was going to remark that you have brought the 

 argument to this pass, that but one conclusion is left, 

 to wit, that the only carnivorous offspring that become 

 food-seekers are those who survive to propagate their 

 kind, and that the others, being many times the 



