68 THE THEORIES OF EVOLUTION 



If innumerable individuals perish under the influence 

 ^ of an inclement nature, is it because they are ill-fitted 

 for the struggle? We must note that nature does 

 not destroy adult individuals able to struggle or to 

 compete among themselves, but rather eggs or lame. 

 And what determines their life or their death is 

 not individual characters but conditions independent 

 of these characters? It is by mere chance that they 

 are not devoured by other animals, because they are 

 more or less sheltered by certain objects, or are more 

 or less noticeable, etc. Such conditions are by no 

 means dependent upon the peculiarities of each and 



every egg. 



In the survival of adults, chance also plays a very 

 important part. As Kellogg writes: 



"What shall decide when the big whale opens his 

 mouth in the midst of a shoal of myriads of tiny 

 Copepods floating in the pelagic waters of the 

 ^Aleutian seas, what Copepod s shall disappear for- 

 ever? Mainly, we say, the chance of position. A 

 bit more or less of size, or strength, or redness, or yel- 

 lowness, or irritability or what not of form and func- 

 tion is going to avail little when the water rushes into 

 the yawning throat." 12 



The same thing happens when the summer heat 



^dries up certain streams or lakes; thousands of 



fishes or aquatic insects perish and the slight differ- 



12 V. L. Kellogg. Darwinism To-day, pp. 80-81. 



