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The individuals which possessed variations in accordance with the environment persisted, while those having injurious variations had a tendency to disappear. Congenital variations were (and are) transmitted with great certainty. This is Mr. Darwin’s “Process of Natural Selection,” called by Mr. Spencer “The Survival of the Fittest.”

The other Darwinian factor in evolution is Sexual Selection. It is that department of Natural Selection in which sex is especially concerned. Anything which exhibits the prowess or beauty of the one sex attracts the other, and decides the preference for one individual over another, with the result that those individuals which are unattractive to the opposite sex are unable to reproduce their kind. The importance of this factor will be appreciated if I give an extract from Darwin’s “Descent of Man” (Vol. II., p. 367). “For my own part,” wrote our great master, “I conclude that of all the causes which have led to the differences in external appearance between the races of men, and to a great extent between man and the lower animals, sexual selection must have been by far the most efficient.”

As I have already said, Darwin neither invented nor discovered the doctrine of Evolution. But he placed it upon a firm foundation by the discovery of the two great factors to which I have referred, and, by incessant observation and indomitable energy, he demonstrated the truth of them beyond any reasonable doubt.

The proofs of the truth of Evolution are of two kinds – palaeontological and embryological. The palaeontological evidence has found its way into popular books, and even into some of the literary newspapers. The history of the horses, of the crocodiles, of the rhinoceros is known in detail. All the stages have been found which intervene between the four-toed Eohippos of the Lower Eocene and the zebra and horse of the present day. Thanks to the late Professor Marsh, of Yale, not only are the successive steps in the evolution of the foot-structure preserved, but so also are the various stages in the evolution of the teeth. The occasional appearance of a three-toed horse points very plainly to a three-toed progenitor, a striking example of atavism, that is, the reappearance of a characteristic which has “skipped” one or more generations.

If the principle of heredity be true, one would expect to find in the development of animals and plants, traces of the line of descent. “If Evolution be true, one ought to find, following back the development of the egg, that specific details would vanish and give rise to more generalized features; that the earlier the stages, the more the embryos of related forms would resemble each other.” This is exactly what is found, there being, in a vast number of instances, a remarkable parallel between the palaeontological record and the embryological evidence. A detailed examination of the facts would not be intelligible to anybody who is not a practical biologist; but I am fully warranted in asserting that every organism in the course of its life-history (technically called ontogeny) is a recapitulation of the history of the race – technically known as phylogeny.

There is other evidence in abundance. The phenomena named atavism is a part of that evidence. Almost everybody has seen well-defined and regular stripes upon horses, and nobody doubts that they indicate a zebra-like ancestor. Again, in the inner side of the human eye is a little red fold, known as the plica semilunaris, the remnant of an ancestor which possessed a third eyelid, similar to that possessed by some reptiles and birds of to-day.

Who are the supporters of the doctrine of Evolution? Practically the whole scientific world. The late Professor Marsh, the distinguished palaeontologist, when president of the American Association for the Advance of Science in 1878, said:

“I need offer no argument for Evolution, since to doubt evolution is to doubt science, and science is only another name for the truth.” Professor Marsh meant, of course, not that evolution is to be taken “on trust,” but that it has been so thoroughly proved that new arguments in support of it are unnecessary.

Concerning Natural Selection, sometimes called Darwinism, the late Professor Huxley said (quotation from Darwin’s “Life”): “I venture to affirm that so far as all my knowledge goes, all the ingenuity and all the learning of the hostile critics have not enabled them to adduce a single fact of which it can be said this is irreconcilable with the Darwinian theory.”

I occasionally hear the old argument that species are immutable – that a species is something which never changes. It seems a little late in the day to revive this contention, but it is necessary to be prepared with a reply. The critics of Darwin’s theory of “the Origin of Species by Natural Selection” have always refused to give a tangible definition of the word “species,” and, as a result, the real difficulty turns upon that point. What is a species? Linnaeus said: “There are as many species as an infinite Being created at the beginning,” a statement which is a confession of faith, and not a scientific definition. We must remember, of course, that Linnaeus died as long ago as 1778. The truth is that all the various tests for species have proved faulty, that of the fertility of hybrids having little more value than many of the other so-called “tests.” In classification, the word “species” means the lowest subdivision to which a name is usually applied, and to aid the zoologist’s or botanist’s memory, some system of classification is, I need not say, an absolute necessity.

According to the view of the anti-evolutionists, most of whom are not scientific men, descendants of a common ancestor must belong to the same species. Nevertheless, the late Mr. Romanes has shown that the rabbits of Porto Santo, an island in the Atlantic, about twenty-five miles from Madeira, descended from the European stock of nearly 500 years ago, will no longer breed with their continental cousins.

When we remember that some wild animals will not breed in captivity, the idea of sterility as a test of species seems utterly unscientific. I venture to say that there can be no accurate definition of species in terms of physiology, for every individual has its peculiarities, chemical as well as physical, and the real difficulty is to decide when these peculiarities are important enough to make it useful to give a precise name to their possessors. Assume for a moment that a species is a group of individuals agreeing in essential characters which remain constant from one generation to another. But what are essential characters and how much constancy is demonstrated? Upon these points no two biologists are likely to agree. For example, taking the birds of Germany, Bechstein says there are 367 species; Brehm says there are 900. According to Reichenbach there are 379, and Meyer and Wolf tell us there are 406.

The idea of a species is based upon structural resemblances between individuals, and the degree of importance attached to these depends upon the mind of the particular observer.

There are two reasons why nobody has seen one species turn into another. The first is that until the word “species” is satisfactorily defined, instances of the evolution of new forms cannot be supplied. Secondly, as nobody lives much beyond a hundred years at the most – a mere moment in Nature – our ability to witness marked changes in animals or plants is extremely limited. Minor changes, of course, are frequently noticed. I ask the reader to remember, however, that the flower-garden and the farm-yard are in an artificial condition, Natural Selection having ceased. For instance, the duck which has defective wings when hatched has as good a chance of surviving as the duck with powerful wings.

Who are the opponents of the doctrine of Evolution? In the scientific world they are difficult to find. Professor Virchow, of Berlin, the distinguished pathologist must, I think, be classed as one, although his verdict is really “not proven.” Professor Haeckel, however, has pointed out that the opinion of a pathologist, no matter how eminent, upon the subject of evolution cannot carry much weight.

Until recently we had with us two men of science whose opposition to some portion of the doctrine of evolution was of importance. These men were Sir William Dawson, the Canadian geologist, and Mr. Mivart, the English anatomist. Both of these gentlemen have died within the past two years.

Having now written a brief outline of the doctrine of Evolution, I believe that I cannot do better than conclude this very imperfect sketch with a quotation from the immortal Shakespeare:

 
“The truth can never be confirmed enough,
Though doubts did ever sleep.”
 

Lawrence Irwell.

THE SURF SCOTER

(Oidemia perspicillata.)

The Surf Scoter is also known by several other popular names, such as the Surf Duck, the Surf or Sea Coot and, not infrequently, the Booby. The name Velvet Duck, though more commonly applied to the white-winged scoter, is also sometimes used to designate this species.

This Scoter is an American species and is only an accidental visitor to European coasts. Its range includes the “coasts and larger inland waters of northern North America; in winter, south to Florida, to the Ohio River and to San Quentin Bay, Lower California.”

Our illustration is that of a male bird. The female is a sooty brown, silvery gray below and with much white on the sides of the head.

Immense flocks of the young of this species winter on San Diego Bay, California. Here the adult birds are of rather rare occurrence for they are able to withstand the rigors of an arctic winter and stay far to the northward where they are a common resident. In the vicinity of San Diego there was about one adult to every seventy-five or one hundred juvenile birds. The former may be easily distinguished by their very striking velvety black plumage, the white markings on the nape and forehead standing out in bold contrast. These white markings remind one of the white bull’s eye on a target. Because of this striking color characteristic the Surf Scoter is frequently called the Target Head, by the California hunters.

They are wary birds and it is often necessary to make a long detour in order to reach a spot near to a flock, without attracting their attention, as they ride the crest of the waves in a heavy surf. The younger birds will remain in the surf so close to the shore that frequently they are cast high and dry upon the beach. When this happens it is very amusing to watch them awkwardly scramble back and enter the water again. The older birds are usually much more shy, remaining far out on the water where they congregate in pairs, though sometimes there may be six or eight together.

As the tides enter San Diego Bay they carry in the loose seaweeds in which are entangled numerous dead starfish and other forms of marine life. These form the principal food not only of the Scoters but also of all the water fowls, such as other species of ducks, the cormorant, the pelican and the beautiful California gull.

The note of the Surf Scoter is to me the most pleasing of all the ducks. It is a soft, mellow whistle ending in a cluck! cluck!

Mr. Nelson states that the Surf Scoter appears in the vicinity of St. Michaels, Alaska, about the middle of May and nests commonly in the marshes of the delta of the Yukon river. It also nests in large numbers on the Atlantic coast from Labrador northward.

Dr. Coues, speaking of these birds as he observed them in Labrador, says, “They are tough birds and remarkably tenacious of life and require a heavy charge to kill them. They are known as Bottle-nosed Coots, a name given in allusion to the very peculiar shape and color of the bill.”

Its nest, usually placed on grassy knolls, in fresh-water marshes near the sea, is made of dried weeds and grasses and lined with the down of the bird. It is evident that the female performs all the duties of incubating the eggs and carrying for the young, for during the nesting period large flocks are observable that consist entirely of males, constantly feeding in their accustomed haunts.

This ocean duck feeds “on small mollusks and fishes, for which it dives almost constantly, both in the sandy bays and amidst the tumbling surf, sometimes fishing at the depth of several fathoms and floating buoyantly among the surf of the raging billows, where it seems as unconcerned as if it were on the most tranquil waters.”

Frank M. Woodruff.