THE WAY OF THE WILD 63 
retire to the rear, and the herd will accept the new leadership. 
In this way only the very choicest and most vigorous survive 
to head the herd. 
Natural selection. And so the competition goes on against 
fire and flood and drought and cold; against talon, tooth, and 
claw, till the weakling goes to the wall. When there is not 
enough for all, when the dinner of. one means the death of 
another, when the problems of life become reduced to the 
elemental instincts of hunger and_ self-preservation, then 
slaughter begins and death and extermination are everyday 
employments. This is natural selection, or the weeding out of 
the weakest. 
This reduction process of nature is not always attended with 
violence and bloodshed, but is often silent and inconspicuous 
though none the less relentless. The woodpecker digs his worm 
out of his burrow in the timber, and only the longest and hardest 
bill will provide enough when worms are scarce. This compe- 
tition based on quality of bills is not conspicuous, but it is, after 
all, direct and effective. 
A mass of vegetation of many species is growing on the 
same area) As none can move they all must stay and fight 
it out together. Now is the struggle for room combined with 
that for food, and it is a battle royal with no noise but with 
plenty of fatalities. 
In this selective process the vigor of the conflict and the 
intensity of the selection are much dependent upon conditions, 
whether favorable or unfavorable to life in general. It might 
seem at first that where conditions of life are least favorable, 
1 Try the experiment of counting the number of different things that can 
be found growing together on a square yard of old turf. 
2 Read “ The Battle in the Meadows,” by Maxwell T. Masters. This fasci- 
nating little book describes the effect upon the mixed herbage of an old park 
at Rothamsted, England, when fertilizers of different kinds were applied. The 
effect of each upon the struggle between the different species growing 
together, some being favored by nitrogen, for example, and others by potas- 
sium or by phosphorus, constitutes one of the most fascinating nature stories 
ever written. 
