6 PARKER— THE PROBLEM OF ADAPTATION. [April 23, 



sects is enormous compared with that in the higher animals and 

 further that geologically speaking the insects are much older than 

 the mammals or birds. Hence they have had a much greater op- 

 portunity to adapt themselves to their conditions than has fallen to 

 the lot of the higher animals. If the maladjustments of the sex 

 ratios as exhibited by the fur seals and other higher animals are to 

 be interpreted in the way indicated, it is clear that the evolutionary 

 processes by which adaptation is brought about must often be slow 

 and imperfect with the result that adaptation itself is better de- 

 scribed, in the words of Bateson, as a poor fit than in the extravagant 

 terms of eulogy with which many of the older writers clothed it. 



Harvard University, 

 April 23, 1915. 



