204 SYMBIOSIS 



But Gaudry has nevertheless adumbrated the direction in 

 which we must look for the solution of the problem. The develop- 

 ment of monstrosity amongst the Carnivora has been connected 

 by more than one writer with the abnormal growth of their prey*, 

 as, no doubt, to some extent it was. Similarly, the monstrosity 

 of the Herbivora was no doubt connected with the fact that their 

 food-plants had increased in size and abundance. In either 

 case there resulted a perverted f/w ratio. The expansion of 

 the lower Angiosperms, in particular the Graminaceae, may well 

 have been a determinative factor of monstrosity. We have seen 

 that there exists, for instance, an " alliance " between the grass 

 and the grazing animal, which often enough may be regarded 

 as an " unholy alliance," for it depends upon the destruction 

 by the Herbivora of shrubs and trees, which would otherwise 

 have been capable of offering them a superior class of food. 

 The aforesaid " unholy alliance " means this : the fewer trees, 

 the fewer fruits, although the more grass an article, which, of 

 course, is as easy of access as it is easy of expansion. The very 

 presence of grass would seem to impair the fertility of fruit-trees. 

 But this very ease of getting grass entails degeneration. It means 

 a low instead of a high order of Symbiosis, and a corresponding 

 physiological deterioration. The seed and fruit-eating animal 

 is less liable to sluggishness and monstrosity than the herbivore, 

 depending mainly upon grass, of which it consumes vast quantities 

 in order to obtain a sufficiency of proteid and vitamine supplies. 

 It is well known, moreover, that even the best cereal food, in 

 spite of its tremendous importance, cannot vie in dietic value 

 with nuts and fruits. As regards the facts of Natural History, 

 so far as they are at present ascertainable, Dr. Edmund Sinnott, 

 of the Connecticut Agricultural College, informs us that a radical 

 change took place in the growth habits of many plants from a 

 woody to a herbaceous type for the most part since the beginning 

 of Tertiary time, and he thinks that this may well have con- 

 tributed to the rapid evolution of Mammals subsequently 

 occurring. Evidently we are here dealing with an undue exuber- 

 ance of life, namely one that went on at the expense of symbiotic 

 restraint, and, pro tanto was attended by pathological con- 

 comitants. We may say that an overflow of nutrition led to 

 an overflow of evolution into pathological channels, the process 

 being further aided by the implied retrogression in Symbiosis. 

 It was a case of quantity versus quality, with corresponding 



