then, much more men. And whom would men appoint? Why, him, plainly, who could cry loudest. And the children of this man would naturally possess the gift. The power of cry would become hereditary in a family; and ever the member of the family that possessed it best would, of the rest, be the selected one, till to the very improvement of the gift, limit there could be none. And, meanwhile, what would happen in situ, in the anatomical machinery itself? Why, the tremor of the unusual voice would so shake the cellular tissue between the plates of the frontal bone as to cause absorption of it. These plates, consequently, would become more and more hollow-would separate more and more. And what could be the consummation at last-what but the enormous resonant caverns over the eyes of Stentor himself!

Really, this seems plausible enough to deserve to escape the reproach of only a story for children—of only μûlóv τινα παισὶ διηγεῖσθαι.

But is it so certain, then, that to frontal sinuses any such special power is due? We cannot all of us have had the privilege of a grandfather on the watch; and yet, while the story holds only of individuals, and only of an exceptional family or two, we are all of us, or all but all of us, to be credited with the possession of frontal sinuses quite as roomy with the one as with the other. Besides that, the very possession of frontal sinuses may entail no such specialty of gift. It is not a deep voice that carries far, but a high one; and resonant caverns are much more likely to go with the bass than the treble! Then there is the elephant: it is said of it that it uses its head as a sort of battering-ram; and, "in order that the brain may not suffer from the consinuses are extended to two large

cussion, the frontal

cavities!" What of resonant chambers" here?

CHAPTER XII.

CRITICISM OF NATURAL SELECTION-CONTINUED.

WE may illustrate the sort of terms on which the imagination of Mr. Darwin is with his material in this way, too.

That is, by chance selects itselects

There are inodorous women, generally very handsome in form and feature, as well as perfectly sweet and gracious in disposition and mind. Why so, is inexplicable. But there the variation is. it is. Once it is, however, nature it, and preserves and encourages it-in two ways. Men, namely, simply following their inclinations, have it more in sight; and wild beasts, naturally, have it less in sense. Moral: all women ought to be inodorous nowadays!

That is the whole Darwinian philosophy. Take something that anecdotically strikes; then raise it into the semblance of scientific rationale by means of suppositious invention through what has been called natural conjecture (as that war will deprave the race by killing off the bravest as the most exposed, and leaving only the weakest at home; or that it will preserve the bravest to send them home to rub out the weak)! That of natural conjecture, indeed, is quite a lever proper of Mr. Darwin's. Certain animals are white in winter as the snow is (St. Ambrose already notices this of the hare), and, escaping notice, are naturally preserved. It is

really a small matter, and reaches to no distance were it even true. Of course, it anecdotically strikes the common mind; but is it true? Are there, then, more such animals-white always, or white at times-than those of any other colour? And birds' nests (sometimes so thin that the eggs show through), are they always coloured to suit their situation, or are they not always obvious in tree or hedge, in bush or ivy, to the beast or boy that will a moment look for them? Nay, the birds themselves if it is the accident of colour that is to give them the advantage the one over the other, why is it that no such advantage shows? Why is it that birds. have literally all the colours of the rainbow? Ah, but there sexual selection comes in, you say. Well, be it so ; but why should black be the privilege of safety or of beauty, to the blackbird or the crow, while it is white that similarly advantages the pigeon? If such and such an animal—a hare it may be should be plainly advantaged in that it is white in winter, why is it that there are still so many that have the disadvantage of being always black? Why are there so many crows? Why are there so many blackbirds? Or why is it that the female blackbird is not a black bird at all, but, on the contrary, only a very plain brown one? You that are so good for accounting for colours, explain to me about the black of crows, or the black of male and the brown of female blackbirds. Or is the question only indiscreet, and imprudent, as put to an ingenuity that has always a story to tell at any time?

But, seriously, why are canaries yellow? Why are larks and starlings spotted? Why has the robin the red breast that gives him his by-name? Selection! there is actually no selection. Neither on the part of nature, nor on the part of sex itself, is there the slightest proof of the necessary limit of selection. For selection,

And

in the very idea that constitutes it, means a limit. limit there is none. Blacks, and whites, and blues, and reds, and greens, and yellows, are to be seen indiscriminately mingled, almost everywhere-blacks, and whites, and reds, and greens, etc., in almost every possible shading-nay, in almost every possible variegation, too! All that pretty anecdotical rationalising story-tellingin regard to the leopard, too (the grandfather has it), is it not of the same kind? There are so many leopards in existence because their spots, confounded with the interstitial light and dark of the jungle, save them. But if that is so, why are there quite as many tigers, animals that are not spotted but striped? Oh, the ghauts, the ghauts, you cry. Well, yes, the ghauts are defiles; but how is a stripe like a defile, or how does it come from a defile, or as being like a defile how does it save them? But admitting that, and saying that leopards are saved by spots, and tigers by stripes, what of the lions? They can be saved by neither-neither by spots nor by stripes, and they are equally numerous, or supposably equally numerous and supposably so is the vernacular of the region-why is there no call for either spots or stripes in their case? Or, after all, just as it is, spotless, stripeless, is not the lion quite as likely to escape detection in the jungle as either of the others, let it be leopard, let it be tiger? Its whelp is striped, Mr. Darwin says; but to what good? Or, leaving the lion alone, what of the elephant ? Such a great, huge monster, with the gleaming ivory of his tusks, and the exposing peculiarity of his trunk, not to mention the betraying heaviness of his tread, and the bursting, rending noisiness of his march-why is it possible for any such uncovered animal to exist at all-if it is specially by reason of their coveredness that there are animals as lions, leopards, and tigers? Might we not use here,

and with quite as much reason as he might we not use here, of the organic, Mr. Darwin's own words (substantially) of the inorganic, "It is sheer stupidity to bring forward any such insoluble problems"?

Even such an insoluble problem is this of colourgenerally; as is most vividly suggested by what we are told in Blackwood for April 1890, article "Animals, Painted and Sculptured," by Mr. Frank E. Beddard, an expert, a well-known official zoologist. "Colour in the animal kingdom is due to two causes," he says, "either to the presence of colouring matters, of pigments, or to the presence of fine sculpturings which produces an optical effect of a certain colour." Of pigments he gives some curious examples, thus:—

"Its spines (those of the tree-porcupine of Brazil), which are greatly concealed by the hair, are bright-yellow-coloured-if the yellow colour is of any use, why should it be so carefully covered up? the yellow spines when washed with warm or even cold water, become white-if it is unintelligible how the creature got its spines coloured in the first place, it is still more difficult to understand how it is that the colour is not a 'fast' one-it almost looks as if nature were playing a practical joke upon us.-Another example of a creature tinted with colours that 'run' is the touraco, and, according to one writer at any rate, the African trogons. A smart shower of rain is said to wash out the red colour from the wings of these birds, and we can confirm the truth of this-it is probable that the variously-coloured pigments are simply waste products, which happen, like the red exudation from the skin of the hippopotamus to be coloured, temporarily stored up on the skin, and ultimately got rid of. On this view we can perhaps understand why the red of the touraco's feathers and the yellow of the porcupine's spines can be washed out so easily. Here birds and insects have been generally referred to, while worms, and star fishes, and crabs, and such like, have been rather ignored.-A congregation of blue, purple, and red invertebrates, living four miles below the surface of the sea, cannot reap much advantage from being inpressed by their neighbour's gaudy attire, even if they could see it, but they cannot see it, for the very good reason that, for the most part, they have no eyes, and if they had, it is too dark to see