THE WAY OF THE WILD 71 
wild species ; the new generations and, in the end, the stable 
stock is constantly arising, not from the general mass, but 
from a few exceptional family lines of great vigor, long life, 
and fair fecundity.! 
Significance of offensive and defensive weapons. It has been 
remarked before that man is the only animal able to use weapons 
other than those with which nature endowed him. Some of 
these natural endowments are, however, remarkable both in 
their character and their usefulness. 
It is natural for any intelligent being to make use of any part 
that will help either in defending himself from his enemies or 
in assisting him in taking his food. In this essential business 
some make use of one part, others of other parts. 
In general, the extremities are likely to be covered with hard 
and often more or less sharp or cutting parts. If so, they are 
exceedingly useful to the possessor as means of inflicting injury 
by blows, puncture, or tearing. Horns, hoofs, teeth, and toe- 
nails are mighty weapons on the earth, and when the same 
species happens to have two or three of these natural weapons 
well developed at the same time, he is a formidable enemy. A 
notable instance is found in the tiger and the cat family generally. 
The grizzly bear has both tooth and claw terribly developed, but 
his claws are not retractable, and he is incapable of the stealth 
of the tiger.? 
Not all species are armed with such terrible weapons, though 
every one has some advantage sufficient to enable it to secure 
1 It is so with people. Comparatively few individuals alive now will be in 
any way represented in the blood lines that people the world five hundred or 
even one hundred years from now. The people then living will trace their 
ancestry to a few of the most vigorous and virile, but not necessarily the most 
prolific, of existing families. The future of the human as well as other species 
depends quite as much upon quality and longevity as upon numbers. 
2 Enthusiastic amateur students of natural history often descant upon the 
beneficence of nature in thus providing her children with certain means of 
getting food, forgetting, it must be, the interests of the victim and assuming 
a partiality between the species that does not exist. Nothing was made es- 
pecially to be eaten, nor are all the favors bestowed on a few species (see a 
later paragraph on Design in nature). 
