16 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



wards relapsed almost always retain some 

 memorial of their old estate in the shape of 

 dwarfed and colourless petals, whose function 

 is gone, while the rudimentary structure still 

 survives. They point back, like the fasces of 

 the Byzantine emperors, to the past glories of 

 their race in earlier times. 



Our fields are full of such degenerate 

 flowers, with green or brown corollas, some- 

 times carefully tucked out of the way of the 

 stamens, so as hardly to be seen unless you 

 pull them out on purpose ; for, contrary to 

 the general belief, evolution does not by any 

 means always or necessarily result in progress 

 and improvement. Nay, the real fact is that 

 by far the greater number of plants and 

 animals are degraded types products of 

 retrogression rather than of upward develop- 

 ment. Take it on the whole, evolution is 

 always producing higher and still higher 

 forms of life ; but at the same time stragglers 

 are always falling into the rear as the world 

 marches onward, and learning how to get 



