THE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
JULY, 1883. 
I. WASTE. 
f OME time ago it was the fashion to extol the wonder- 
ful economy of “ Nature.” Did she not, in her 
anxiety to leave nothing unutilised, put ten plants or 
animals where there was only room, light, and nutriment 
for two or three ? Did she not make the most of space by 
peopling both the outer surface and even the interior of 
animals with parasites ? Did she not break up her products 
the moment their life had ceased, and use the materials over 
again, thus setting man an example which he as yet but 
very imperfectly follows ? 
Yet whilst fully admitting these and many other instances 
of thrift in Nature, — some of them carried out to the sore 
discomfiture of the beings wrought upon, — not a few minds 
have come to recognise an accompanying outlay of material 
and of power which from a human point of view is simply 
profligate. Men are actually beginning to write and speak 
about the extravagance of Nature. By way of exception- 
ally adopting a new fashion let us, too, consider the waste- 
fulness so strangely and in seeming inconsistency mingled 
with parsimony. Is Nature in certain respeCts lavishly 
prodigal, expending means out of all fair proportion to the 
end to be produced ? 
Our notice is first drawn to certain faCts connected with 
the propagation of plants and animals. We find that eggs, 
seeds, germs are produced in such abundance that not a 
tithe, not a hundredth, of. them can possibly reach ma- 
turity. Of these seeds and ova the vast majority never 
germinate, never come to life at all. Many are devoured by 
predatory animals ; and inasmuch as all are nourished by 
VOL. v. (third series.) 2 c 
