178 Miscellaneous Objections to the Chap, vil, 



the nascent giraffe, considering its probable habits of life ; for those- 

 individuals which had some one part or several parts of their bodies- 

 rather more elongated than usual, would generally have survived. 

 These will have intercrossed and left offspring, either inheriting the- 

 same bodily peculiarities, or with a tendency to vary again in the 

 same manner ; whilst the individuals, less favoured in the same 

 respects, will have been the most liable to perish. 



We here see that there is no need to separate single pairs, as man 

 does, when he methodically improves a breed : natural selection will 

 preserve and thus separate all the superior individuals, allowing 

 them freely to intercross, and will destroy all the inferior indivi- 

 duals. By this process long-continued, which exactly corresponds 

 with what I have called unconscious selection by man, combined no- 

 doubt in a most important manner with the inherited effects of the 

 increased use of parts, it seems to me almost certain that an ordinary, 

 hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe. 



To this conclusion Mr. Mivart brings forward two objections. 

 One is that the increased size of the body would obviously require 

 an increased supply of food, and he considers it as " very problemati- 

 cal whethei the disadvantages thence arising would not, in times of 

 scarcity, more than counterbalance the advantages." But as the- 

 giraffe does actually exist in large numbers in S. Africa, and as 

 some of the largest antelopes in the world, taller than an ox, abound 

 there, why should we doubt that, as far as size is concerned, inter- 

 mediate gradations could formerly have existed there, subjected as- 

 now to severe dearths. Assuredly the being able to reach, at each 

 stage of increased size, to a supply of food, left untouched by the 

 other hoofed quadrupeds of the country, would have been of some 

 advantage to the nascent giraffe. Nor must we overlook the fact,, 

 that increased bulk would act as a protection against almost all 

 beasts of prey excepting the lion ; and against this animal, its tall 

 neck,— and the taller the better, — would, as Mr. Chauncey Wright 

 has remarked, serve as a watch-tower* It is from this cause, as Sir 

 S. Baker remarks, that no animal is more difficult to stalk than the 

 giraffe. This animal also uses its long neck as a means of offence 

 or defence, by violently swinging its head armed with stump-like- 

 horns. The preservation of each species can rarely be determined 

 by any one advantage, but by the union of all, great and small. 



Mr. Mivart then asks (and this is his second objection), if natural 

 selection be so potent, and if high browsing be so great an advan- 

 tage, why has not any other hoofed quadruped acquired a long neck 

 and lofty stature, besides the giraffe, and, in a lesser degree, the- 

 camel, guanaco, and macrauchenia ? Or, again, why has not any 



