1036 The American Naturalist. [November, 
inal haunts to some physical peculiarity which became so strongly 
developed previous to any change in their secondary sexual char- 
acters as to necessitate a life on the barrens and prairie, and 
debar them from a woodland existence. Centrocercus urophasi- 
anus subsists wholly upon the buds of the Artemisia, which grows 
exclusively upon unwooded barrens and tablelands, and its gizzard 
has in consequence been so metamorphosed as to unfit it for the 
digestion of other food. Conditions none the less local and arbi- 
trary may be discovercd to restrict Cupidonia cupido to a prairie 
life, despite the evident tendency of natural law to induce him to 
quit it for the forest. 
In an investigation of this nature, the infinite complexity of 
organic life, the inscrutable interdependence of natural laws, and 
the mysterious sequence of past events rise before us in fuller 
revelation. Nature stands accused of a mysterious crime. There 
is no direct evidence in the case. History and precedent seem 
to fail us, but the present—never. It is the supreme court; its 
records are perpetual, its proofs infallible, and its judgment based 
on the testimony of ages. Our appeal is made, and we must 
wait, trusting that the future will justify what the past allowed. 
