2i8 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



ers with the races of men who use them, and with them 

 go the domesticated animals and plants and the weeds 

 and vermin man has brought unwillingly into relations 

 of domination. 



The process of natural selection has been summed 

 up in the phrase "survival of the fittest." This, how- 

 ever, tells only part of the story. " Sur- 

 The survival of yiyal f fa j u 



the existing. fe 3 



covers more of the truth. For in hosts 



of cases the survival of characters rests not on any spe- 

 cial usefulness or fitness, but on the fact that individuals 

 possessing these characters have inhabited or invaded 

 a certain area. The principle of utility explains sur- 

 vivals among competing structures. It rarely accounts 

 for qualities associated with geographic distribution. 



The nature of the animals which first colonize a dis- 

 trict must determine what the future fauna shall be. 

 From their specific characters, which are neither useful 

 nor harmful, will be derived for the most part the spe- 

 cific characters of their successors. 



It is not essential to the meadow lark that he should 

 have a black blotch on the breast or the outer tail- 

 feather white. Yet all meadow larks have these charac- 

 ters just as all shore larks have the tiny plume behind 

 the ear. Those characters of the parent stock, which 

 may be harmful in the new relations, will be eliminated 

 by natural selection. Those especially helpful will be 

 intensified and modified, but the great body of charac- 

 ters, the marks by which we know the species, will be 

 neither helpful nor hurtful. These will be meaningless 

 streaks and spots, variations in size of parts, peculiar 

 relations of scales or hair or feathers, little matters 

 which can neither help nor hurt, but which have all the 

 persistence heredity can give. 



The species of animals change with space and change 



