Natural Selection and Tropical Nature: Essays on Descriptive and Theoretical BiologyMacmillan and Company, 1891 - 492 pages |
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Page 3
... curious , but quite inexplicable . None of the explanations attempted from the time of Linn¿us are now considered at all satisfactory ; none of them have given a cause sufficient to account for the facts known at the time , or ...
... curious , but quite inexplicable . None of the explanations attempted from the time of Linn¿us are now considered at all satisfactory ; none of them have given a cause sufficient to account for the facts known at the time , or ...
Page 35
... curious facts which had long been considered as inexplicable anomalies . Importance of the Principle of Utility - Perhaps no principle has ever been announced so fertile in results as that which Mr. Darwin so earnestly impresses upon us ...
... curious facts which had long been considered as inexplicable anomalies . Importance of the Principle of Utility - Perhaps no principle has ever been announced so fertile in results as that which Mr. Darwin so earnestly impresses upon us ...
Page 41
... curious case of this kind of adaptation occurs in the sea - horses ( Hippocampus ) of Australia , some of which bear long foliaceous appendages resembling seaweed , and are of a brilliant red colour ; and they are known to live among ...
... curious case of this kind of adaptation occurs in the sea - horses ( Hippocampus ) of Australia , some of which bear long foliaceous appendages resembling seaweed , and are of a brilliant red colour ; and they are known to live among ...
Page 43
... curious South American butterflies that always settle on the trunks of trees ( Gynecia dirce and Callizona acesta ) have the under surface curiously striped and mottled , and when viewed obliquely must closely assimilate with the appear ...
... curious South American butterflies that always settle on the trunks of trees ( Gynecia dirce and Callizona acesta ) have the under surface curiously striped and mottled , and when viewed obliquely must closely assimilate with the appear ...
Page 44
... curious to observe how the usual marginal and transverse stri¿ of the group are here modified and strengthened so as to become adapted for an imitation of the venation of a leaf . We come now to a still more extraordinary part of the ...
... curious to observe how the usual marginal and transverse stri¿ of the group are here modified and strengthened so as to become adapted for an imitation of the venation of a leaf . We come now to a still more extraordinary part of the ...
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Common terms and phrases
abundant action adapted allied species America animals ants appear bamboo Batavia beautiful become bees beetles birds branches brilliant butterflies caterpillars causes chaffinches character civilised climate colour Colours of Animals concealment conspicuous curious Darwin distinct earth equatorial zone evidence exactly existence extinct facts families favourable feet female fertilised flowers foliage forests genera genus geological gravel green groups habits humming-birds imitated important increase inhabit insects instinct islands kind larv¿ laws less Malay Archipelago male mammalia mimicry mode modified moths natural selection naturalists nectary nest observed occur organic organisation origin Origin of Species ornaments Papilio peculiar phenomena pigeons plants Pliocene plumage probably produced protection race remarkable render resemble savage sexes sexual sexual selection sometimes South South America spots structure sun-birds surface tail temperate theory tints tion trees tropical variation varied variety vegetation whole wings yellow
Popular passages
Page 206 - ... to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain ; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be ; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the • solution of the problem, ' How are these physical processes...
Page 212 - WILL, while we have no knowledge of any other primary cause of force, it does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may be will-force ; and thus, that the whole universe, is not \ merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL of higher intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence.
Page 174 - Tribes in which such mental and moral qualities were predominant would therefore have an advantage in the struggle for existence over other tribes in which they were less developed, would live and maintain their numbers, while the others would decrease and finally succumb.
Page 24 - ... die either by violence or want of food. Yet at this rate how tremendous would be the increase in a few years from a single pair! A simple calculation will show that in fifteen years each pair of birds would have increased to nearly ten millions! whereas we have no reason to believe that the number of the birds of any country increases at all in fifteen or in one hundred and fifty years.
Page 323 - ... are found in the temperate (northern and southern) parts of the continent are migrants, which retire in the winter to the warmer lands near or within the tropics.
Page 206 - ... the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable.
Page 20 - ... -there suddenly flashed upon me the idea of the survival of the fittest—that the individuals removed by these checks must be on the whole inferior to those that survived. In the two hours that elapsed before my ague fit was over I had thought out almost the whole of the theory, and the same evening I sketched the draft of my paper, and in the two succeeding evenings wrote it out in full, and sent it by the next post to Mr. Darwin.
Page 182 - ... a grand revolution was effected in nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of the earth's history had had no parallel, for a being had arisen who was no longer necessarily subject to change with the changing universe — a being who was in some degree superior to nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control and regulate her action, and could keep himself in harmony with her, not by a change in body, but by an advance of mind.
Page 8 - Such phenomena as are exhibited by the Galapagos Islands, which contain little groups of plants and animals peculiar to themselves, but most nearly allied to those of South America, have not hitherto received any, even a conjectural explanation.
Page 442 - Mtnneiota, 1877, p. 60. are recorded in the first, second, and third volumes of the Reports of the Peabody Museum. The interesting series of researches now briefly recorded has led us on step by step through the several stages of the quaternary at least as far back as the first great Glacial period, thus corresponding to the various epochs of Neolithic and Palaeolithic man in Europe, terminating in the Suffolk flints, claimed to be pre-Glacial by Mr. Skertchley, or the earliest traces of human occupancy...