422 RECAPITULATION. Cuap. XIV. 



Many other facts arc, as it seems to me, explicable on this 

 theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of 

 woodj)ecker, should have been created to prey on insects on 

 the ground ; that upland geese, which never or rarely swim, 

 should have been created with webbed feet ; that a thrush- 

 like bird should have been created to dive and feed on sub- 

 aquatic insects ; and that a petrel should have been created 

 with the habits and structure fitting it for the life of an auk ! 

 — and so in endless other cases. But, on the view of each 

 species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural 

 selection always ready to adapt the slowly-varying descend- 

 ants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in Nature, 

 these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been an- 

 ticipated. 



We can understand how it is that such harmonious beauty 

 generally prevails throughout Nature. That there are excep- 

 tions according to our ideas of beauty, no one will doubt who 

 Avill look at some of the venomous snakes, at some fish, and at 

 certain hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the hu- 

 man face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors 

 and other ornaments to the males, but sometimes to both sexes 

 of many birds, butterflies, and a few other animals. With 

 birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the 

 female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been 

 rendered conspicuous by gaudy colors in contrast with the 

 green foliage, in order that the flowers might be easily seen, 

 visited, and fertilized by insects, and the seeds disseminated 

 by birds. Lastly, some living objects have become beautiful 

 through mere symmetry of growth. 



As natural selection acts by competition, it renders the in- 

 habitants of each country perfect only in relation to the other 

 inhabitants ; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of 

 an}'^ one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to 

 have been created and specially adapted for that country, 

 1)cing beaten and suj^planted by the naturalized productions 

 from another land. Nor ought we to marvel if all the contriv- 

 ances in Nature he not, as far as we can judge, absolutely per- 

 fect ; and if some of them be abhorrent to our ideas of fitness. 

 We need not marvel at the sting of the bee when used against 

 an enemy often causing the bee's own death ; at drones being 

 ))roduced in such great numbers for one single act, and being 

 then slaughtered by their sterile sisters ; at the astonishing 

 waste of pollen by our fir-trees ; at the instinctive hatred of 



