',8 1 



ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND 

 REFLECTIONS IN SHETLAND. 



EDMUND SELOUS. 



{Co7iliiiiied frofu page J^o). 



Darwin says : ' As some of the lowest organisms, in which 

 nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, 

 it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in 

 their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into 

 nerves endowed with this special sensibility.'* Let us 

 imagine this done and these lowly organisms seeing through a 

 respectable pair of eyes, but yet retaining this original power of 

 visual perception, without their aid, and sometimes making 

 use of it, not as a matter of choice, probably, but because it 

 could not be avoided. It will be admitted, at least, that there 

 would be no great wonder here. Yet if we suppose that no 

 sense-organs had ever been founded upon this rudimentary 

 perception of light, either in these or any other organisms, 

 including our own, then the movements, or other indications 

 from which the existence of such a power is now deduced, would, 

 not improbably, be attributed by us to some other kind of 

 perception with which, in developed form, we might then con- 

 ceivably be acquainted. It could, no doubt, be pointed out 

 that there did not seem to be any close relation between such 

 movements, etc., and the special sense, possessed, in common, 

 by ourselves and these organisms, to which we were inclined 

 to attribute them, but, for all that, they would, for a long 

 time, continue to be attributed to that sense, because it would 

 be there (designated by a familiar word on which thought 

 could concentrate) whilst eyes would not be — ' les absents ont 

 toujour s tort.' The sole reason, however, for the development of 

 any sense-organ, through natural selection, is its use to the 

 species. The foundation, for all we can see, may be there, for 

 various other such structures, which, did they exist, would 

 enlarge, multiply and perhaps correct our outlook on the 

 universe, in ways inconceivable to us — for who can imagine a 

 new sense ? It does not, however, follow that, between such 

 inchoate receptivities and even the first scaffolding, so to 

 speak, of special structural accommodation for them, there 

 can be no intermediate stages of use and development — at 

 least I cannot see that it does. In all cases, structural develop- 

 ment has to await opportunity, and, long before that came, the 

 strength, definedness and use of any organless percept might, 

 through the laws of heredity and general evolutionary principles, 

 have been on the increase. This is not mere matter of pos- 



* ' Origin of Species,' 1888 edit., Vol. I., chap. 6, p. 224. 

 19 '8 Dec- 1. 



