WHAT WE OWE TO DARWIN 13 



lessly : that is Struggle between Foes. The foes 

 do not need to be well matched. Alfred Russel 

 Wallace has recently told us of a pair of blue tits, 

 with a large family, who worked for sixteen hours 

 a day at midsummer, and it was estimated that 

 they captured in that time about two thousand 

 caterpillars and grubs. A locust-bird at work is 

 another good instance of a one-sided struggle. 

 Nor do the foes need to compete directly — ^it will 

 suflB.ce if both seek the same food, the same locality, 

 the same anything, (c) Darwin recognised a 

 third great mode of the struggle for existence 

 when he spoke, for instance, of a plant on the 

 edge of the desert struggling for life against the 

 drought, and of the birds struggling against the 

 winter. This is the Struggle with Fate. 



As a number of illustrious living naturalists 

 persist in maintaining that what Darwin mainly 

 thought of was the struggle between near kin — 

 for room in the nest, for food at the platter, 

 for foothold on the rock, and so on, we must 

 remember Darwin's emphatic statement that he 

 used the term " in a large and metaphorical 

 sense." He speaks of two " canine animals " 

 struggling with each other in a time of dearth ; 

 of mistletoe versus mistletoe on the same branch ; 

 of mistletoe versus other fruit-bearing plants ; 

 of a plant on the edge of the desert in days of 

 drought ; and then says, " In these several senses, 

 which pass into each other, I use, for convenience' 

 sake, the general term of Struggle for Existence." 

 The fact is that the " struggle for existence " is a 

 formula-phrase including aU the reactions and 

 endeavours of living creatures in face of difl&culties 

 and limitationSii 



