Mr. Darwin misses the point. 163 



eight cuckoos being fed by one pair of pies ; and, if 

 they in this respect so very substantially differ from 

 our cuckoos, then another problem arises as to the 

 cause or reason of such an essential difference. 



These are but a few suggestions out of a whole 

 Hst of difficulties that arose on us in reading Mr. 

 Darwin's rather empty and ambitious passages in the 

 eighth chapter of his Origin of Species (6th edition). 

 We do not here proceed further in our list, but con- 

 tent ourselves with repeating that, if Mr. Darwin 

 had satisfied himself about the steps of the process 

 he sets down as highly probable — a process which, 

 mark you, gets wholly rid of one form of strongly 

 inherited instmct, and by gradual steps, practise in 

 which is, according to him, determined wholly by 

 long continued observations and considerations of 

 benefit at once to old ones and young, and had thus 

 reached a wholly new method of life and propagation 

 of the species — then, we hold that he was wholly 

 wrong in summing up the result as a "strange in- 

 stinct." In fact, he could hardly have been less dis- 

 cerning, philosophic, and perspicuous than he is in 

 this section of his eighth chapter of Origin of Species, 

 where this was perhaps demanded more than perhaps 

 anywhere else in all his writings. 



XXII. 



Mr. Headley, in a remarkable article in one of the 

 quarterlies some years ago, laid it down that, "as a 

 rule," it is among polygamous species that we find 

 the bird-combatants most desperate, and the antics 

 the most elaborate. The courage and ferocity of the 



