EXTEiS^SIOXS OF DAEWIXISM 297 



The other case is that of the equally remarkable Babinisa 

 of the islands of Celebes and Burn, in which the canines of 

 the males are so developed as to be useless for fighting- (see 

 Fig. 107). Here, too, there can be little doubt that the tusks 

 were originally of the same type as in the wild boar, and were 

 used for both attack and defence; but the ancestral form hav- 

 ing been long isolated in a country where there were no ene- 

 mies of importance, natural selection ceased to preser\'e thom 

 in their original useful form, and the initial curvature became 

 increased by germinal selection, while natural selection only 

 checked such developments as would be injurious to the in- 

 dividuals which exhibited them. 



A Wider Application of the Principle of Germ-Selection 



But it seems to me that the principle here suggested has a 

 still higher importance, inasmuch as it has been the normal 

 means of adding to and intensifying that endless varietv of 

 form, that strange luxuriance of outgrowths, and that ex- 

 quisite beauty of marking and brilliancy of colour, that ren- 

 der the world of life an inexpressible delight to all who have 

 been led to observe, to appreciate, or to study it. It is through 

 the action of some such internal selecting agency that we owe 

 much of what we must call the charming eccentricity of nature 

 — of those exuberances of growth which cause the nature- 

 lover to perpetually exclaim, " What can be the use of this ? '* 

 In the birds-of-paradise we had long known of the tail- 

 feathers, the breast-shields, the masses of plumage from under 

 the wings, the crests, the neck-tippets, all in wonderful variety 

 of shape and colour. Then, in the island of Batch iau 1 ob- 

 tained a bird in which from the bend of the wing (correspond- 

 ing to our wrist) there spring two slender and flexible white 

 feathers on each side standine; out from the wine: durinc: ilii^ht, 

 whence it has been termed the standard-winged bird-of-para- 

 dise. Again, a few years ago, there was discovered in the 

 mountains of German 'New Guinea another quite new type, in 

 which, from the corner of each eye, a long plume arises more 



