1 8 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



bounds. Thus it is recorded that the first specimen of 

 Melanocetus johnsonii, obtained from off Madeira, had 

 engorged another fish about twice its own length. Dr. Gill 

 writes : — ' The extensibihty of the jaws and connected 

 parts as well as the dilatabihty of the oesophagus, stomach 

 and integuments enabled the captor fish to accompUsh 

 this feat ' — after which it took a bait and was caught. 

 Another curious fish, LinopJiryne lucifer, from the same 

 locahty, came to be known by coming up to surface, hoist 

 on its own petard, having swallowed another fish longer 

 than itself. 



The Struggle for Existence. — As we watch the drama 

 from year to year we see ever-recurrent situations. The 

 dramatis personse may be different, but the situation is 

 the same. Among the most familiar of these situations 

 are the various forms of ' the struggle for existence ', 

 which we use as a formula to include all the ways in which 

 living creatures react to limitations : — Animals get hungry, 

 they seek their food, they endeavour to catch what often 

 endeavours not to be caught, they compete with others 

 who endeavoiir to catch the same elusive prey, they have 

 also to keep an eye on those who are seeking to catch them 

 while they are trying to catch something else ; and mean- 

 while they have to struggle to keep their foothold amid the 

 storm of the careless physical environment. There are 

 also struggles for mates and for the safety of offspring. 

 Which of these endeavours is the struggle for existence ? 

 Each and all. For the real meaning of the phrase is to be 

 found, not in picturing this or that kind of struggle or 

 endeavour, but rather in the general idea of Hving organisms 

 asserting themselves against limitations and difficulties, 

 partly no doubt due to their immediate competitors of the 



