166 MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE [CHAP. VII. 



more elongated than usual, would generally have survived. These 

 will have intercrossed and left offspring, either inheriting the same 

 bodily peculiarities, or with a tendency to vary again in the 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 indi- 

 viduals, allowing them freely to intercross, and will destroy 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 objections. 

 One is that the increased size of the body would obviously require 

 an increased supply of food, and he considers it as "very problem- 

 atical 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 con- 

 cerned, 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 7nore 

 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 acquired 

 a long neck and lofty stature, besides the giraffe, and, in a lesser 

 degree, the camel, guanaco, and macrauchenia ? Or, again, why 

 has not any member of the group acquired a long proboscis ? 

 With respect to S. Africa, which was formerly inhabited by 

 numerous herds of the giraffe, the answer is not difficult, and can 



