another on the same side an equal distance apart. In a very lengthy paper, presented to the Linnean Society last year, on "Divergent Evolution through Cumulative Segregation," Mr. Gulick endeavours to work out his views into a complete theory, the main point of which may perhaps be indicated by the following passage: "No two portions of a species possess exactly the same average character, and the initial differences are for ever reacting on the environment and on each other in such a way as to ensure increasing divergence in each successive generation as long as the individuals of the two groups are kept from intercrossing."[1]
It need hardly be said that the views of Mr. Darwin and myself are inconsistent with the notion that, if the environment were absolutely similar for the two isolated portions of the species, any such necessary and constant divergence would take place. It is an error to assume that what seem to us identical conditions are really identical to such small and delicate organisms as these land molluscs, of whose needs and difficulties at each successive stage of their existence, from the freshly-laid egg up to the adult animal, we are so profoundly ignorant. The exact proportions of the various species of plants, the numbers of each kind of insect or of bird, the peculiarities of more or less exposure to sunshine or to wind at certain critical epochs, and other slight differences which to us are absolutely immaterial and unrecognisable, may be of the highest significance to these humble creatures, and be quite sufficient to require some slight adjustments of size, form, or colour, which natural selection will bring about. All we know of the facts of variation leads us to believe that, without this action of natural selection, there would be produced over the whole area a series of inconstant varieties mingled together, not a distinct segregation of forms each confined to its own limited area.
Mr. Darwin has shown that, in the distribution and modification of species, the biological is of more importance than the physical environment, the struggle with other organisms being often more severe than that with the forces of nature. This is particularly evident in the case of plants, many of which, when protected from competition, thrive in a
- ↑ Journal of the Linnean Society, Zoology, vol. xx. p. 215.
