OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY 305 



Chauncey Wright has remarked, serve as a watch- 

 tower. It is from this cause, as Sir S. Baker re- 

 marks, 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 advan- 

 tage, but by the union of all, great and small. 



Mr. Mivart then asks (and this is his second objec- 

 tion), 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 South Africa, which was formerly inhab- 

 ited by numerous herds of the giraffe, the answer is not 

 difficult, and can best be given by an illustration. In 

 every meadow in England in which trees grow, we see 

 the lower branches trimmed or planed to an exact level 

 by the browsing of the horses or cattle; and what advan- 

 |] tage would it be, for instance, to sheep, if kept there, to 

 acquire slightly longer necks? In every district some 

 one kind of animal will almost certainly be able to 

 browse higher than the others; and it is almost equally 

 certain that this one kind alone could have its neck 

 elongated for this purpose, through natural selection and 

 the effects of increased use. In South Africa the com- 

 petition for browsing on the higher branches of the 

 acacias and other trees must be between giraffe and 

 giraffe, and not with the other ungulate animals. 



Why, in other quarters of the world, various animals 



