12 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 



Amusing evidence of the difficulty with which this ' great law ' was 

 understood is afforded by a verse written by Lord Neaves and dated 

 May, 1861 : 



' A deer with a neck that was longer by half 

 Than the rest of its family's (try not to laugh), 

 By stretching and stretching, became a Giraffe, 

 Which nobody can deny.' ^^ 



Yet Wallace, referring to Lamarck's hypothesis and * that now 

 advanced,' had written in his Section of the Joint Essay : 



* Neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reach 

 the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck 

 for the purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its 

 antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range 

 of pasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions, 

 and on the first scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them.^ 



There were fortunately others who did not launch such ill-aimed 

 criticism. Thus Professor Newton, reminding the Section that the 

 new teachings had been at once accepted by Canon Tristram ^^ before 

 the appearance of the Origin of Species (on November 24, 1859), 

 expressed, with all the enthusiasm of one who was devoted to the 

 same delightful branch of natural history, ' the hope that the study 

 of ornithology may be said to have been lifted above its fellows.' 

 It was indeed very fortunate that the Darwin-Wallace Essay should 

 have been read so soon after its appearance by a naturalist who looked 

 on the species question as did Tristram — a great traveller and observer 

 who studied indefatigably the birds he loved, as living creatures and 

 in as many countries as he could visit. 



At the last meeting of the British Association in Nottingham (1893) 

 Canon Tristram was President of Section D and, in his address, 

 gave an account of the observations referred to by Newton at Man- 

 chester. The historic interest of this early acceptance of Natural 

 Selection is such that I have prepared a brief abstract of his chief 

 conclusions : 



During a visit of many months to the Algerian Sahara in 1857-58, 

 he ' noticed the remarkable variations in different groups, according 

 to elevation from the sea, and the difference of soil and vegetation.' 

 On his return he read the Darwin-Wallace Essay and wrote, ' It is 

 hardly possible, I should think, to illustrate this theory better than 

 by the larks and chats of North Africa.' He then explained how the 

 colours arose by selective destruction of birds which harmonised 

 less well than others with the surface of the desert. And similarly 

 with other larks having ' differences, not only of colour, but of 



*^ The Origin of Species . A new song. In. Songs and verses, social and scientific, 

 by an old contributor to Maga. Edinburgh, 1868, 2nd Ed. 

 1' Ibis, October, 1859, pp. 429-433. 



