The Making of Species 
In each competition some candidates pass with 
ease: they gain an unnecessarily high total of 
marks. So in nature do certain organisms, as, 
for example, the Leaf-butterflies (Kadlzmas), 
appear to be over-adapted to their environment. 
Other candidates manage to pass only by a very 
narrow margin: these are paralleled in nature by 
those species which are barely able to maintain 
themselves, which become extinct the moment 
the competition increases in severity. 
The great bulk of the candidates fail to obtain 
sufficient marks to gain a place among the chosen 
few ; these unsuccessful candidates correspond to 
the mutating forms which perish in the struggle 
for existence, to those individuals which happen 
to have mutated in unfavourable directions. 
Even as many candidates have acquired know- 
ledge of subjects in which they are not examined, 
so do many organisms possess characteristics 
which are of no utility to them in the struggle 
for existence. 
Wallaceians expend much time and energy in 
misguided attempts to explain the existence of 
such characters in terms of natural selection. 
Nature’s examination, like that held for en- 
trance to the Indian Civil Service, is a liberal 
one, so that the qualifications of the successful 
candidates vary considerably. Provided a can- 
didate is able to gain more marks than the other 
candidates for a vacancy, it matters not in what 
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