28 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



beyond measure even .though they are non-prolific 

 and slow breeders. Let me read to you this passage. 

 'The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of 

 all known animals, and I have taken some pains 

 to estimate its probable minimum rate of increase. 

 It will be safest to assume that it begins breeding 

 when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till 

 ninety years old, bringing forth six young in the 

 interval, and surviving till one hundred years old ; if 

 this be so, after a period of from 740 to 750 years, 

 there would be nearly nineteen million elephants 

 alive descended from the first pair.' Again he says : 

 ' On the other hand, in some cases, as with the 

 elephant, none are destroyed by beasts of prey.' 

 How then did Darwin imagine that the increase of 

 the elephant was checked ? Did he suppose that 

 Natural Selection was all potent to arrest its increase 

 without material means being employed ? But in his 

 affirmation that no elephants are destroyed by beasts 

 of prey Darwin was greatly mistaken, for there is no 

 fact better known to Anglo-Indians than that elephant 

 babies are not unfrequently swooped off by the 

 sudden rush of a great cat, even from the presence 

 of the protecting parent. The enormous strength of 

 the tiger and of the lion enables them, when once in 

 possession of their victim, to baffle all parental pursuit. 

 I need not tell you that there is no haunt of the big 

 pachyderms elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus 

 where some of the greater cats do not abound, and 

 in some cases alligators, who exact a sufficient tribute 



