" Natural Selection " 49 



We now proceed to examine further some of the 

 statements in Messrs. Dewar and Finn's very able 

 work. On pages 348 and 349 they say : " We are 

 inclined to think that neither the food limit nor the 

 beasts of prey are a very important check on the 

 multiplication of organisms. The lion, for example, 

 was never so numerous as to reach the limit of its food 

 supply. Before the white man obtained a foothold in 

 Africa, vast herds of herbivores were to be seen in 

 those districts where lions were most plentiful." As 

 was pointed out earlier, it ought to be patent to every- 

 one that if the lions were not kept at uniform numbers, 

 the antelopes would be bound to be gradually ex- 

 terminated by the excessive progressive increase of the 

 carnivores which feed on them. It is the food limit 

 which determines the numbers which shall survive in 

 any one area of the jungle. The number of the ante- 

 lopes is determined by the supply of vegetable food. 

 After prolonged droughts the number of the antelopes 

 is greatly reduced by famine and pestilence. The 

 lions at once begin to suffer from starvation ; and 

 numbers die in greater or less proportion, according to 

 the extent and severity of the famine. Whenever the 

 food supply becomes limited, the male about the time 

 of parturition has to go much further afield, and thus 

 gives his mate a rare opportunity for bringing forth in 

 her secluded lair, and ere long the reduced numbers of 

 the tribe, with the return of the food supply, come 

 back automatically to the average. When the lions 

 are in average numbers and food supply abundant, 

 the female has great difficulty in finding concealment, 

 and the young are destroyed in numbers sufficient to 

 keep the tribe at a fixed ratio. If " teething troubles 

 in the whelp " were the cause of the limitation of 

 excess of reproduction, how could the losses through 

 famine, pestilence, and the rifle be made up ? If this 



