carry marrow bones and Tortoises high 
into the air and drop them upon stones 
so as to obtain their contents. Yet he 
is not beyond making serious mistakes, 
for one of them is said to have taken 
the bald head of the great poet 
Aeschylus for a smooth stone, dropped 
a Tortoise upon it, and secured in lieu 
of a luscious meal the lamentable 
demise of one of the greatest of men. 
A true view of Nature leads us to 
regard whatever we find in an organ- 
ism not as a perfect instrument to a 
given end, but as a remnant of what 
may have been produced by desire on the 
part of ancestors more or less remote. 
Indeed, it has well been said that our 
whole body is but a museum of antiqu- 
ity of no practical interest, but of great 
historical importance. What we find 
in ourselves and elsewhere among 
living things is not to be regarded as 
creations perfectly adapted to given 
ends, for there is no perfect adaptation. 
Plants and animals are continually 
striving for it, but conditions change 
more rapidly than they and the chase 
is unsuccessful. Perfect adaptation 
would be stagnation. 
A manifest design of Nature is that 
things may live. But death is the 
rule and life the exception. Out of a 
million seeds but one can grow. All 
may make something of a struggle ; a 
few fortunate individuals thrive. Not 
the fittest, but usually some among 
those most fit. The whole range of 
life from the Bathybius Haeckelii to 
the tailless Ape exhibits a grand strug- 
gle for perfect adaptation with a greater 
or less failure in store for every indi- 
vidual. The human race is carrying 
on the same enterprise with the same 
results. The instant we seem to be 
fitted for our environment there comes 
a change of affairs that leaves us con- 
fronted with a problem just as inter- 
esting and urgent as the old one we 
flattered ourselves we were able to 
solve. 
REASONING POWERS OF BIRDS. 
(j I HERE is something very re- 
4 I markable in the almost reason- 
all powers manifested occa- 
sionally by birds in eluding 
pursuit or in turning attention from 
their nests and young, but in few is 
this more noticeable than in the Duck 
tribes. In Capt. Black's narrative of 
his Arctic land expedition the follow- 
ing instance of this is given : 
"One of his companions, Mr. King, 
having shot a female Duck, fired 
again, and, as he thought, disabled its 
male companion. Accordingly, leav- 
ing the dead bird, which he had the 
mortification of seeing shortly after- 
ward carried off by one of the white- 
headed Eagles, he waded into the 
water after the drake, which, far from 
being fluttered or alarmed, remained 
motionless, as if waiting to be taken 
up. Still, as he neared it, it glided 
easily away through innumerable little 
nooks and windings. Several times 
he reached out his hand to seize it, 
and having at last with great patience 
managed to coop it up in a corner, 
from which there appeared to be no 
escape, he was triumphantly bending 
down to take it, when, to his utter 
astonishment, it looked around at him, 
cried ' Quack ! ' and then flew away 
so strongly that he was convinced he 
had never hit it at all. The bird's 
object clearly was to draw the gunner 
away from its companion." 
43 
