96 PROFESSOR T. MCKENNY HUGHES, M.A. 
drop into some treacherous pool. So nature deprived it of 
wings, and, instead, lengthened its antennz, so that it could 
feel in time to save itself when, with less impetuous leaps, it 
came against an obstacle. 
Do these changes also point to a great lapse of time? or 
may we believe that among the lower forms of life, and those 
in which the generations follow one another most rapidly, 
these changes also may be much more rapid? There is 
nothing in the nature of the case to show that evolution must 
be slow. If forms of life are modified by their environment, 
the rate of change in the organic being muy yet be slow; but, 
as far as we can see, it often is very rapid. What an oppor- 
tunity for studying such questions. An animal, the type of 
liveliness—the sunny grasshopper, the flying ruby emerald or 
topaz—is plunged at once and for ever into the darkness of 
earth’s innermost recesses. No need of wings, where it dare 
not fly; no use for eyes, where it cannot see; no advantage 
in gorgeous hue, where there is no light to be reflected. 
What will become of it? Nature cuts off its wings; nature 
blinds its eyes; nature washes out its brilliant colours; but, 
in compensation, gives it means to guard against its new 
dangers by lengthening cut its antenna, to let it feel its way 
about. : 
If this process is still going on, what will it come to? Does 
it go on indefinitely throughout all nature, or are there limits 
of evolution forall, or its own limit for each form? On the 
one hand, from analogy we learn that we must not assume, 
because development goes on constantly within our short 
experience, that it must go on in the same way indefinitely. 
Were a being from a treeless planet to visit our earth and 
report upon what he observed of the growth of an oak, he 
might record that the tree developed in the same way each 
year-—bud, leaf, flower, fruit; and that twig, branch, and bowl 
grew in proportion; and the roots shot out downwards and 
sideways, seeking, with what looked almost like intelligence, the 
best-suited soil. He saw no reason why it might not go on 
for ever while our earth could bear it. How different the fact. 
The oak tree has its term of life. So may species, for aught 
we can at present certainly say, have their term of life. But 
what determines it? Again, I appeal to analogy not as an 
argument so much as in illustration. Fairy-rings on the grass 
are the annular spaces on which a certain fungus grows. 
This fungus scatters its spores all round, but they will grow 
only on the virgin soil outside, and, as they will not grow 
where they have grown before, inside the ring the species 
becomes extiuct. 
