II.J INCIPIENT STRUCTURES. 37 



habited be granted. In that case, when the ground vege- 

 tation has been consumed, and the trees alone remain, it is 

 plain that at such times only those individuals (of what we 

 assume to be the nascent giraffe species) which were able 

 to reach high up would be preserved, and would become 

 the parents of the following generation, some individuals 

 of which would, of course, inherit that high-reaching power 

 which alone preserved their parents. Only the high-reach- 

 ing issue of these high-reaching individuals would again, 

 cceteris paribus, be preserved at the next drought, and 

 would again transmit to their offspring their still loftier 

 stature ; and so on, from period to period, through aeons of 

 time, all the individuals tending to revert to the ancient 

 shorter type of body, being ruthlessly destroyed at the oc- 

 currence of each drought. 



(1.) But against this it may be said, in the first place, 

 that the argument proves too much ; for, on this supposi- 

 tion, many species must have tended to undergo a similar 

 modification, and we ought to have at least several forms, 

 similar to the giraffe, developed from different Ungulata. 6 

 A careful observer of animal life, who has long resided in 

 South Africa, explored the interior, and lived in the giraffe 

 country, has assured the author that the giraffe has powers 

 of locomotion and endurance fully equal to those possessed 

 by any of the other Ungulata of that continent. It would 

 seem, therefore, that some of these other Ungulates ought 

 to have developed in a similar manner as to the neck, under 

 pain of being starved, when the long heck of the giraffe 

 was in its incipient stage. 



To this criticism it has been objected that different kinds 

 of animals are preserved, in the struggle for life, in very 

 different ways, and even that " high reaching " may be at- 



6 The order Urtgulata contains the hoofed beasts ; that is, all oxen, 

 deer, antelopes, sheep, goats, camels, hogs, the hippopotamus, the differ- 

 ent kinds of rhinoceros, the tapirs, horses, asses, zebras, quaggas, etc. 



