206 
Analyses of Books . 
[March, 
somewhere about the mouth of the Amur. Had this region not 
undergone elevation, so as to be converted into dry land, there 
would have been no need of any Afghan war. elevation 
But does the struggle for existence really lead to A* dwabon 
of individuals, of races, or of species ? It is a 
that when man undertakes the improvement of any species ms 
nilv illustrated by reference to a turnip-field, the farmer toie 
rates no competition either between individual turnips or between 
the latter and any interlopers in the shape of weeds. The con- 
seauence is, not merely a higher general average size among the 
roots but the produftion of some individuals far surpassing any 
Sat can be developed in a competitive-*.*., an over-crowded 
an lTwhen e aiufgle takes place are we at all sure that the 
suS though possibly the one most ^ 
rounding circumstances, is by any means the best, wnat 
instance are the plants which multiply and spread the most 
rapidly, and which! so far from, needing our fostenng care bid 
defiance to all our efforts for their destruction ? Is it the wheat, 
ofthe vin! or the rose, which thus obtrudes itself everywhere ? 
One of the most obvious charaaenstics of rampant weeds is 
their generally low position in the scale alike of utility and of 
be in t the animal kingdom we find something altogether similar 
The* commonest insells are, as a rule the »ost mischievous and 
the uriiest In proof we refer to the locusts, the phylloxera, tne 
the ugli P ; n = P1 q= the various mosquitoes and sand- 
lifter' extending, as we might, this “rvey through odie^de- 
the‘™trug S gles SS and nations are 
the strugg , elevating as our author believes, and 
