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CHAPTER III.
STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE.
Its bearing on natural selection -- The term used in a wide sense --
Geometrical ratio of increase -- Rapid increase of naturalised animals and
plants -- Nature of the checks to increase -- Competition universal --
Effects of climate -- Protection from the number of individuals -- Complex
relations of all animals and plants throughout nature -- Struggle for life
most severe between individuals and varieties of the same species: often
severe between species of the same genus -- The relation of organism to
organism the most important of all relations.
Before entering on the subject of this chapter I must make a few
preliminary remarks to show how the struggle for existence bears on natural
selection. It has been seen in the last chapter that among organic beings
in a state of nature there is some individual variability: indeed I am not
aware that this has ever been disputed. It is immaterial for us whether a
multitude of doubtful forms be called species or sub-species or varieties;
what rank, for instance, the two or three hundred doubtful forms of British
plants are entitled to hold, if the existence of any well-marked varieties
be admitted. But the mere existence of individual variability and of some
few well-marked varieties, though necessary as the foundation for the work,
helps us but little in understanding how species arise in nature. How have
all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organisation to another
part, and to the conditions of life and of one organic being to another
being, been perfected? We see these beautiful co-adaptations most plainly
in the woodpecker and the mistletoe; and only a little less plainly in the
humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of a quadruped or feathers of a
bird; in the structure of the beetle which dives through the water; in the
plumed seed which is wafted by the gentlest breeze; in short, we see
beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world.
Again, it may be asked, how is it that varieties, which I have called
incipient species, become ultimately converted into good and distinct
species, which in most cases obviously differ from each other far more than
do the varieties of the same species? How do those groups of species,
which constitute what are called distinct genera and which differ from each
other more than do the species of the same genus, arise? All these
results, as we shall more fully see in the next chapter, follow from the
struggle for life. Owing to this struggle, variations, however slight and
from whatever cause proceeding, if they be in any degree profitable to the
individuals of a species, in their infinitely complex relations to other
organic beings and to their physical conditions of life, will tend to the
preservation of such individuals, and will generally be inherited by the
offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of
surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which are
periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this
principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the
term natural selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of
selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the
Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally
convenient. We have seen that man by selection can certainly produce great
results, and can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the
accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand of
Nature. But Natural Selection, we shall hereafter see, is a power
incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man's
feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.
We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence. In
my future work this subject will be treated, as it well deserves, at
greater length. The elder De Candolle and Lyell have largely and
philosophically shown that all organic beings are exposed to severe
competition. In regard to plants, no one has treated this subject with
more spirit and ability than W. Herbert, Dean of Manchester, evidently the
result of his great horticultural knowledge. Nothing is easier than to
admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more
difficult--at least I found it so--than constantly to bear this conclusion
in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind, the whole
economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance,
extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. We
behold the face of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance
of food; we do not see or we forget that the birds which are idly singing
round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly
destroying life; or we forget how largely these songsters, or their eggs,
or their nestlings, are destroyed by birds and beasts of prey; we do not
always bear in mind, that, though food may be now superabundant, it is not
so at all seasons of each recurring year.
THE TERM, STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE, USED IN A LARGE SENSE.
I should premise that I use this term in a large and metaphorical sense,
including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more
important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving
progeny. Two canine animals, in a time of dearth, may be truly said to
struggle with each other which shall get food and live. But a plant on the
edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though
more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture. A plant
which annually produces a thousand seeds, of which only one of an average
comes to maturity, may be more truly said to struggle with the plants of
the same and other kinds which already clothe the ground. The mistletoe is
dependent on the apple and a few other trees, but can only in a far-fetched
sense be said to struggle with these trees, for, if too many of these
parasites grow on the same tree, it languishes and dies. But several
seedling mistletoes, growing close together on the same branch, may more
truly be said to struggle with each other. As the mistletoe is
disseminated by birds, its existence depends on them; and it may
metaphorically be said to struggle with other fruit-bearing plants, in
tempting the birds to devour and thus disseminate its seeds. In these
several senses, which pass into each other, I use for convenience sake the
general term of Struggle for Existence.
GEOMETRICAL RATIO OF INCREASE.
A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all
organic beings tend to increase. Every being, which during its natural
lifetime produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during
some period of its life, and during some season or occasional year,
otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would
quickly become so inordinately great that no country could support the
product. Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly
survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one
individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of
distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the
doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and
vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of
food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species may
be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do so, for
the world would not hold them.
There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally
increases at so high a rate, that, if not destroyed, the earth would soon
be covered by the progeny of a single pair. Even slow-breeding man has
doubled in twenty-five years, and at this rate, in less than a thousand
years, there would literally not be standing room for his progeny.
Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two
seeds--and there is no plant so unproductive as this--and their seedlings
next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a
million plants. The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known
animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate
of natural increase; it will be safest to assume that it begins breeding
when thirty years old, and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing
forth six young in the interval, and surviving till one hundred years old;
if this be so, after a period of from 740 to 750 years there would be
nearly nineteen million elephants alive descended from the first pair.
But we have better evidence on this subject than mere theoretical
calculations, namely, the numerous recorded cases of the astonishingly
rapid increase of various animals in a state of nature, when circumstances
have been favourable to them during two or three following seasons. Still
more striking is the evidence from our domestic animals of many kinds which
have run wild in several parts of the world; if the statements of the rate
of increase of slow-breeding cattle and horses in South America, and
latterly in Australia, had not been well authenticated, they would have
been incredible. So it is with plants; cases could be given of introduced
plants which have become common throughout whole islands in a period of
less than ten years. Several of the plants, such as the cardoon and a tall
thistle, which are now the commonest over the wide plains of La Plata,
clothing square leagues of surface almost to the exclusion of every other
plant, have been introduced from Europe; and there are plants which now
range in India, as I hear from Dr. Falconer, from Cape Comorin to the
Himalaya, which have been imported from America since its discovery. In
such cases, and endless others could be given, no one supposes that the
fertility of the animals or plants has been suddenly and temporarily
increased in any sensible degree. The obvious explanation is that the
conditions of life have been highly favourable, and that there has
consequently been less destruction of the old and young and that nearly all
the young have been enabled to breed. Their geometrical ratio of increase,
the result of which never fails to be surprising, simply explains their
extraordinarily rapid increase and wide diffusion in their new homes.
In a state of nature almost every full-grown plant annually produces seed,
and among animals there are very few which do not annually pair. Hence we
may confidently assert that all plants and animals are tending to increase
at a geometrical ratio--that all would rapidly stock every station in which
they could any how exist, and that this geometrical tendency to increase
must be checked by destruction at some period of life. Our familiarity
with the larger domestic animals tends, I think, to mislead us; we see no
great destruction falling on them, and we do not keep in mind that
thousands are annually slaughtered for food, and that in a state of nature
an equal number would have somehow to be disposed of.
The only difference between organisms which annually produce eggs or seeds
by the thousand, and those which produce extremely few, is, that the slow
breeders would require a few more years to people, under favourable
conditions, a whole district, let it be ever so large. The condor lays a
couple of eggs and the ostrich a score, and yet in the same country the
condor may be the more numerous of the two. The Fulmar petrel lays but one
egg, yet it is believed to be the most numerous bird in the world. One fly
deposits hundreds of eggs, and another, like the hippobosca, a single one.
But this difference does not determine how many individuals of the two
species can be supported in a district. A large number of eggs is of some
importance to those species which depend on a fluctuating amount of food,
for it allows them rapidly to increase in number. But the real importance
of a large number of eggs or seeds is to make up for much destruction at
some period of life; and this period in the great majority of cases is an
early one. If an animal can in any way protect its own eggs or young, a
small number may be produced, and yet the average stock be fully kept up;
but if many eggs or young are destroyed, many must be produced or the
species will become extinct. It would suffice to keep up the full number
of a tree, which lived on an average for a thousand years, if a single seed
were produced once in a thousand years, supposing that this seed were never
destroyed and could be ensured to germinate in a fitting place; so that, in
all cases, the average number of any animal or plant depends only
indirectly on the number of its eggs or seeds.
In looking at Nature, it is most necessary to keep the foregoing
considerations always in mind--never to forget that every single organic
being may be said to be striving to the utmost to increase in numbers; that
each lives by a struggle at some period of its life; that heavy destruction
inevitably falls either on the young or old during each generation or at
recurrent intervals. Lighten any check, mitigate the destruction ever so
little, and the number of the species will almost instantaneously increase
to any amount.
NATURE OF THE CHECKS TO INCREASE.
The causes which check the natural tendency of each species to increase are
most obscure. Look at the most vigorous species; by as much as it swarms
in numbers, by so much will it tend to increase still further. We know not
exactly what the checks are even in a single instance. Nor will this
surprise any one who reflects how ignorant we are on this head, even in
regard to mankind, although so incomparably better known than any other
animal. This subject of the checks to increase has been ably treated by
several authors, and I hope in a future work to discuss it at considerable
length, more especially in regard to the feral animals of South America.
Here I will make only a few remarks, just to recall to the reader's mind
some of the chief points. Eggs or very young animals seem generally to
suffer most, but this is not invariably the case. With plants there is a
vast destruction of seeds, but from some observations which I have made it
appears that the seedlings suffer most from germinating in ground already
thickly stocked with other plants. Seedlings, also, are destroyed in vast
numbers by various enemies; for instance, on a piece of ground three feet
long and two wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking
from other plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they
came up, and out of 357 no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs
and insects. If turf which has long been mown, and the case would be the
same with turf closely browsed by quadrupeds, be let to grow, the more
vigorous plants gradually kill the less vigorous, though fully grown
plants; thus out of twenty species grown on a little plot of mown turf
(three feet by four) nine species perished, from the other species being
allowed to grow up freely.
The amount of food for each species, of course, gives the extreme limit to
which each can increase; but very frequently it is not the obtaining food,
but the serving as prey to other animals, which determines the average
number of a species. Thus, there seems to be little doubt that the stock
of partridges, grouse, and hares on any large estate depends chiefly on the
destruction of vermin. If not one head of game were shot during the next
twenty years in England, and, at the same time, if no vermin were
destroyed, there would, in all probability, be less game than at present,
although hundreds of thousands of game animals are now annually shot. On
the other hand, in some cases, as with the elephant, none are destroyed by
beasts of prey; for even the tiger in India most rarely dares to attack a
young elephant protected by its dam.
Climate plays an important part in determining the average numbers of a
species, and periodical seasons of extreme cold or drought seem to be the
most effective of all checks. I estimated (chiefly from the greatly
reduced numbers of nests in the spring) that the winter of 1854-5 destroyed
four-fifths of the birds in my own grounds; and this is a tremendous
destruction, when we remember that ten per cent. is an extraordinarily
severe mortality from epidemics with man. The action of climate seems at
first sight to be quite independent of the struggle for existence; but in
so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing food, it brings on the most
severe struggle between the individuals, whether of the same or of distinct
species, which subsist on the same kind of food. Even when climate, for
instance, extreme cold, acts directly, it will be the least vigorous
individuals, or those which have got least food through the advancing
winter, which will suffer the most. When we travel from south to north, or
from a damp region to a dry, we invariably see some species gradually
getting rarer and rarer, and finally disappearing; and the change of
climate being conspicuous, we are tempted to attribute the whole effect to
its direct action. But this is a false view; we forget that each species,
even where it most abounds, is constantly suffering enormous destruction at
some period of its life, from enemies or from competitors for the same
place and food; and if these enemies or competitors be in the least degree
favoured by any slight change of climate, they will increase in numbers;
and as each area is already fully stocked with inhabitants, the other
species must decrease. When we travel southward and see a species
decreasing in numbers, we may feel sure that the cause lies quite as much
in other species being favoured, as in this one being hurt. So it is when
we travel northward, but in a somewhat lesser degree, for the number of
species of all kinds, and therefore of competitors, decreases northward;
hence in going northward, or in ascending a mountain, we far oftener meet
with stunted forms, due to the DIRECTLY injurious action of climate, than
we do in proceeding southward or in descending a mountain. When we reach
the Arctic regions, or snow-capped summits, or absolute deserts, the
struggle for life is almost exclusively with the elements.
That climate acts in main part indirectly by favouring other species we
clearly see in the prodigious number of plants which in our gardens can
perfectly well endure our climate, but which never become naturalised, for
they cannot compete with our native plants nor resist destruction by our
native animals.
When a species, owing to highly favourable circumstances, increases
inordinately in numbers in a small tract, epidemics--at least, this seems
generally to occur with our game animals--often ensue; and here we have a
limiting check independent of the struggle for life. But even some of
these so-called epidemics appear to be due to parasitic worms, which have
from some cause, possibly in part through facility of diffusion among the
crowded animals, been disproportionally favoured: and here comes in a sort
of struggle between the parasite and its prey.
On the other hand, in many cases, a large stock of individuals of the same
species, relatively to the numbers of its enemies, is absolutely necessary
for its preservation. Thus we can easily raise plenty of corn and
rape-seed, etc., in our fields, because the seeds are in great excess
compared with the number of birds which feed on them; nor can the birds,
though having a superabundance of food at this one season, increase in
number proportionally to the supply of seed, as their numbers are checked
during the winter; but any one who has tried knows how troublesome it is to
get seed from a few wheat or other such plants in a garden; I have in this
case lost every single seed. This view of the necessity of a large stock
of the same species for its preservation, explains, I believe, some
singular facts in nature such as that of very rare plants being sometimes
extremely abundant, in the few spots where they do exist; and that of some
social plants being social, that is abounding in individuals, even on the
extreme verge of their range. For in such cases, we may believe, that a
plant could exist only where the conditions of its life were so favourable
that many could exist together, and thus save the species from utter
destruction. I should add that the good effects of intercrossing, and the
ill effects of close interbreeding, no doubt come into play in many of
these cases; but I will not here enlarge on this subject.
COMPLEX RELATIONS OF ALL ANIMALS AND PLANTS TO EACH OTHER IN THE STRUGGLE
FOR EXISTENCE.
Many cases are on record showing how complex and unexpected are the checks
and relations between organic beings, which have to struggle together in
the same country. I will give only a single instance, which, though a
simple one, interested me. In Staffordshire, on the estate of a relation,
where I had ample means of investigation, there was a large and extremely
barren heath, which had never been touched by the hand of man; but several
hundred acres of exactly the same nature had been enclosed twenty-five
years previously and planted with Scotch fir. The change in the native
vegetation of the planted part of the heath was most remarkable, more than
is generally seen in passing from one quite different soil to another: not
only the proportional numbers of the heath-plants were wholly changed, but
twelve species of plants (not counting grasses and carices) flourished in
the plantations, which could not be found on the heath. The effect on the
insects must have been still greater, for six insectivorous birds were very
common in the plantations, which were not to be seen on the heath; and the
heath was frequented by two or three distinct insectivorous birds. Here we
see how potent has been the effect of the introduction of a single tree,
nothing whatever else having been done, with the exception of the land
having been enclosed, so that cattle could not enter. But how important an
element enclosure is, I plainly saw near Farnham, in Surrey. Here there
are extensive heaths, with a few clumps of old Scotch firs on the distant
hill-tops: within the last ten years large spaces have been enclosed, and
self-sown firs are now springing up in multitudes, so close together that
all cannot live. When I ascertained that these young trees had not been
sown or planted I was so much surprised at their numbers that I went to
several points of view, whence I could examine hundreds of acres of the
unenclosed heath, and literally I could not see a single Scotch fir, except
the old planted clumps. But on looking closely between the stems of the
heath, I found a multitude of seedlings and little trees, which had been
perpetually browsed down by the cattle. In one square yard, at a point
some hundred yards distant from one of the old clumps, I counted thirty-two
little trees; and one of them, with twenty-six rings of growth, had, during
many years tried to raise its head above the stems of the heath, and had
failed. No wonder that, as soon as the land was enclosed, it became
thickly clothed with vigorously growing young firs. Yet the heath was so
extremely barren and so extensive that no one would ever have imagined that
cattle would have so closely and effectually searched it for food.
Here we see that cattle absolutely determine the existence of the Scotch
fir; but in several parts of the world insects determine the existence of
cattle. Perhaps Paraguay offers the most curious instance of this; for
here neither cattle nor horses nor dogs have ever run wild, though they
swarm southward and northward in a feral state; and Azara and Rengger have
shown that this is caused by the greater number in Paraguay of a certain
fly, which lays its eggs in the navels of these animals when first born.
The increase of these flies, numerous as they are, must be habitually
checked by some means, probably by other parasitic insects. Hence, if
certain insectivorous birds were to decrease in Paraguay, the parasitic
insects would probably increase; and this would lessen the number of the
navel-frequenting flies--then cattle and horses would become feral, and
this would certainly greatly alter (as indeed I have observed in parts of
South America) the vegetation: this again would largely affect the
insects; and this, as we have just seen in Staffordshire, the insectivorous
birds, and so onwards in ever-increasing circles of complexity. Not that
under nature the relations will ever be as simple as this. Battle within
battle must be continually recurring with varying success; and yet in the
long-run the forces are so nicely balanced that the face of nature remains
for long periods of time uniform, though assuredly the merest trifle would
give the victory to one organic being over another. Nevertheless, so
profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when
we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the
cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the
duration of the forms of life!
I am tempted to give one more instance showing how plants and animals,
remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex
relations. I shall hereafter have occasion to show that the exotic Lobelia
fulgens is never visited in my garden by insects, and consequently, from
its peculiar structure, never sets a seed. Nearly all our orchidaceous
plants absolutely require the visits of insects to remove their
pollen-masses and thus to fertilise them. I find from experiments that
humble-bees are almost indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease
(Viola tricolor), for other bees do not visit this flower. I have also
found that the visits of bees are necessary for the fertilisation of some
kinds of clover; for instance twenty heads of Dutch clover (Trifolium
repens) yielded 2,290 seeds, but twenty other heads, protected from bees,
produced not one. Again, 100 heads of red clover (T. pratense) produced
2,700 seeds, but the same number of protected heads produced not a single
seed. Humble bees alone visit red clover, as other bees cannot reach the
nectar. It has been suggested that moths may fertilise the clovers; but I
doubt whether they could do so in the case of the red clover, from their
weight not being sufficient to depress the wing petals. Hence we may infer
as highly probable that, if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct
or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very
rare, or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district
depends in a great measure upon the number of field-mice, which destroy
their combs and nests; and Colonel Newman, who has long attended to the
habits of humble-bees, believes that "more than two-thirds of them are thus
destroyed all over England." Now the number of mice is largely dependent,
as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Colonel Newman says, "Near
villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more
numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that
destroy the mice." Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a
feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the
intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain
flowers in that district!
In the case of every species, many different checks, acting at different
periods of life, and during different seasons or years, probably come into
play; some one check or some few being generally the most potent, but all
will concur in determining the average number, or even the existence of the
species. In some cases it can be shown that widely-different checks act on
the same species in different districts. When we look at the plants and
bushes clothing an entangled bank, we are tempted to attribute their
proportional numbers and kinds to what we call chance. But how false a
view is this! Every one has heard that when an American forest is cut
down, a very different vegetation springs up; but it has been observed that
ancient Indian ruins in the Southern United States, which must formerly
have been cleared of trees, now display the same beautiful diversity and
proportion of kinds as in the surrounding virgin forests. What a struggle
must have gone on during long centuries between the several kinds of trees,
each annually scattering its seeds by the thousand; what war between insect
and insect--between insects, snails, and other animals with birds and
beasts of prey--all striving to increase, all feeding on each other, or on
the trees, their seeds and seedlings, or on the other plants which first
clothed the ground and thus checked the growth of the trees. Throw up a
handful of feathers, and all fall to the ground according to definite laws;
but how simple is the problem where each shall fall compared to that of the
action and reaction of the innumerable plants and animals which have
determined, in the course of centuries, the proportional numbers and kinds
of trees now growing on the old Indian ruins!
The dependency of one organic being on another, as of a parasite on its
prey, lies generally between beings remote in the scale of nature. This is
likewise sometimes the case with those which may strictly be said to
struggle with each other for existence, as in the case of locusts and
grass-feeding quadrupeds. But the struggle will almost invariably be most
severe between the individuals of the same species, for they frequent the
same districts, require the same food, and are exposed to the same dangers.
In the case of varieties of the same species, the struggle will generally
be almost equally severe, and we sometimes see the contest soon decided:
for instance, if several varieties of wheat be sown together, and the mixed
seed be resown, some of the varieties which best suit the soil or climate,
or are naturally the most fertile, will beat the others and so yield more
seed, and will consequently in a few years supplant the other varieties.
To keep up a mixed stock of even such extremely close varieties as the
variously coloured sweet-peas, they must be each year harvested separately,
and the seed then mixed in due proportion, otherwise the weaker kinds will
steadily decrease in number and disappear. So again with the varieties of
sheep: it has been asserted that certain mountain-varieties will starve
out other mountain-varieties, so that they cannot be kept together. The
same result has followed from keeping together different varieties of the
medicinal leech. It may even be doubted whether the varieties of any of
our domestic plants or animals have so exactly the same strength, habits,
and constitution, that the original proportions of a mixed stock (crossing
being prevented) could be kept up for half-a-dozen generations, if they
were allowed to struggle together, in the same manner as beings in a state
of nature, and if the seed or young were not annually preserved in due
proportion.
STRUGGLE FOR LIFE MOST SEVERE BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND VARIETIES OF THE SAME
SPECIES.
As the species of the same genus usually have, though by no means
invariably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and always in
structure, the struggle will generally be more severe between them, if they
come into competition with each other, than between the species of distinct
genera. We see this in the recent extension over parts of the United
States of one species of swallow having caused the decrease of another
species. The recent increase of the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has
caused the decrease of the song-thrush. How frequently we hear of one
species of rat taking the place of another species under the most different
climates! In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has everywhere driven
before it its great congener. In Australia the imported hive-bee is
rapidly exterminating the small, stingless native bee. One species of
charlock has been known to supplant another species; and so in other cases.
We can dimly see why the competition should be most severe between allied
forms, which fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature; but
probably in no one case could we precisely say why one species has been
victorious over another in the great battle of life.
A corollary of the highest importance may be deduced from the foregoing
remarks, namely, that the structure of every organic being is related, in
the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all other organic
beings, with which it comes into competition for food or residence, or from
which it has to escape, or on which it preys. This is obvious in the
structure of the teeth and talons of the tiger; and in that of the legs and
claws of the parasite which clings to the hair on the tiger's body. But in
the beautifully plumed seed of the dandelion, and in the flattened and
fringed legs of the water-beetle, the relation seems at first confined to
the elements of air and water. Yet the advantage of the plumed seeds no
doubt stands in the closest relation to the land being already thickly
clothed with other plants; so that the seeds may be widely distributed and
fall on unoccupied ground. In the water-beetle, the structure of its legs,
so well adapted for diving, allows it to compete with other aquatic
insects, to hunt for its own prey, and to escape serving as prey to other
animals.
The store of nutriment laid up within the seeds of many plants seems at
first sight to have no sort of relation to other plants. But from the
strong growth of young plants produced from such seeds, as peas and beans,
when sown in the midst of long grass, it may be suspected that the chief
use of the nutriment in the seed is to favour the growth of the seedlings,
whilst struggling with other plants growing vigorously all around.
Look at a plant in the midst of its range! Why does it not double or
quadruple its numbers? We know that it can perfectly well withstand a
little more heat or cold, dampness or dryness, for elsewhere it ranges into
slightly hotter or colder, damper or drier districts. In this case we can
clearly see that if we wish in imagination to give the plant the power of
increasing in numbers, we should have to give it some advantage over its
competitors, or over the animals which prey on it. On the confines of its
geographical range, a change of constitution with respect to climate would
clearly be an advantage to our plant; but we have reason to believe that
only a few plants or animals range so far, that they are destroyed
exclusively by the rigour of the climate. Not until we reach the extreme
confines of life, in the Arctic regions or on the borders of an utter
desert, will competition cease. The land may be extremely cold or dry, yet
there will be competition between some few species, or between the
individuals of the same species, for the warmest or dampest spots.
Hence we can see that when a plant or animal is placed in a new country,
among new competitors, the conditions of its life will generally be changed
in an essential manner, although the climate may be exactly the same as in
its former home. If its average numbers are to increase in its new home,
we should have to modify it in a different way to what we should have had
to do in its native country; for we should have to give it some advantage
over a different set of competitors or enemies.
It is good thus to try in imagination to give any one species an advantage
over another. Probably in no single instance should we know what to do.
This ought to convince us of our ignorance on the mutual relations of all
organic beings; a conviction as necessary, as it is difficult to acquire.
All that we can do is to keep steadily in mind that each organic being is
striving to increase in a geometrical ratio; that each, at some period of
its life, during some season of the year, during each generation, or at
intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction. When
we reflect on this struggle we may console ourselves with the full belief
that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death
is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy
survive and multiply.
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