THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION 231 



same manner; whilst the individuals, less favoured in the 

 same respects, will have been the most liable to perish. 



We here see that there is no need to separate single pairs, 

 as man does, when he methodically improves a breed ; natural 

 selection will preserve and thus separate all the superior 

 individuals, allowing them freely to intercross, and will de- 

 stroy all the inferior individuals. By this process long- 

 continued, which exactly corresponds with what I have called 

 unconscious selection by man, combined no doubt in a most 

 important manner with the inherited effects of the increased 

 use of parts, it seems to me almost certain that an ordinary 

 hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe. 



To this conclusion Mr. Mivart brings forward two objec- 

 tions. One is that the increased size of the body would 

 obviously require an increased supply of food, and he con- 

 siders it as "very problematical whether the disadvantages 

 thence arising would not, in times of scarcity, more than 

 counterbalance the advantages." But as the giraffe does 

 actually exist in large numbers in S. Africa, and as some of 

 the largest antelopes in the world, taller than an ox, abound 

 there, why should we doubt that, as far as size is concerned, 

 intermediate gradations could formerly have existed there, 

 subjected as now to severe dearths? Assuredly the being 

 able to reach, at each stage of increased size, to a supply of 

 food, left untouched by the other hoofed quadrupeds of the 

 country, would have been of some advantage to the nascent 

 giraffe. Nor must we overlook the fact, that increased bulk 

 would act as a protection against almost all beasts of prey 

 excepting the lion ; and against this animal, its tall neck, — 

 and the taller the better, — would, as Mr. Chauncey Wright 

 has remarked, serve as a watch-tower. It is from this cause, 

 as Sir S. Baker remarks, that no animal is more difficult to 

 stalk than the giraffe. This animal also uses its long neck 

 as a means of offence or defence, by violently swinging its 

 head armed with stump-like horns. The preservation of 

 each species can rarely be determined by any one advantage 

 but by the union of all, great and small. 



Mr. Mivart then asks (and this is his second objection), 

 if natural selection be so potent, and if high browsing be so 

 great an advantage, why has not any other hoofed quadruped 



