ORIGIN OF THE LIVING MACHINE: ADAPTATION 345 



especially adapted to the conditions of new localities. Hence 

 their adaptation to a new environment must have been ac- 

 quired during their growth, and not by an original special cre- 

 ation. The question of how the adaptation was produced, 

 therefore, comes up with redoubled force. 



More careful study, however, shows that animals are not 

 always exactly adapted to their environment. The old idea 

 that each organism is especially fitted for its environment is not 

 borne out by facts. Of course living animals are always in a 

 measure adapted to the conditions in which they live, for if they 

 were not they would long since have been exterminated. Indeed, 

 the history of animals shows many instances where poorly 

 adapted animals have been crushed out of existence, leaving 

 alive only those adapted to their environment. On the other 

 hand, many instances are known where organisms living in 

 one part of the world to-day are not particularly adapted 

 to their habitat, but are really better adapted to other parts 

 of the wdrld if they could only get into new regions. It not 

 infrequently happens that organisms from one country get 

 carried by accident to another, and find the new country far 

 better adapted to their life than their original home. For 

 example, when the European hare was carried to Australia, it 

 found conditions far better adapted to it than those of its original 

 home in Europe, and it multiplied with prodigious rapidity, be- 

 coming far more abundant in Australia than ever it was in 

 Europe. The English sparrow, when introduced from England, 

 finding America better adapted to its life than England, multi- 

 plied very rapidly, and spread over the country. Our fields in 

 the eastern states are filled with the so-called white daisy (Leu- 

 canthemum) . This is a European species which, when introduced 

 into this country, found conditions better adapted to its needs 

 than in its original home and became far more abundant here 

 than in its original home. These three illustrations show that 

 although animals certainly must be adapted to the conditions 

 in which they live or be exterminated, they are not particularly 



