Divergence of Character.
In species which have a wide range the struggle for existence will often cause some individuals or groups of individuals to adopt new habits in order to seize upon vacant places in nature where the struggle is less severe. Some, living among extensive marshes, may adopt a more aquatic mode of life; others, living where forests abound, may become more arboreal. In either case we cannot doubt that the changes of structure needed to adapt them to their new habits would soon be brought about, because we know that variations in all the external organs and all their separate parts are very abundant and are also considerable in amount. That such divergence of character has actually occurred we have some direct evidence. Mr. Darwin informs us that in the Catskill Mountains in the United States there are two varieties of wolves, one with a light greyhound-like form which pursues deer, the other more bulky with shorter legs, which more frequently attacks sheep.[1] Another good example is that of the insects in the island of Madeira, many of which have either lost their wings or have had them so much reduced as to be useless for flight, while the very same species on the continent of Europe possess fully developed wings. In other cases the wingless Madeira species are distinct from, but closely allied to, winged species of Europe. The explanation of this change is, that Madeira, like many oceanic islands in the temperate zone, is much exposed to sudden gales of wind, and as most of the fertile land is on the coast, insects which flew much would be very liable to be blown out to sea and lost. Year after year, therefore, those individuals which had shorter wings, or which used them least, were preserved; and thus, in time, terrestrial, wingless, or imperfectly winged races or species have been produced. That this is the true explanation of this singular fact is proved by much corroborative evidence. There are some few flower-frequenting insects in Madeira to whom wings are essential, and in these the wings are somewhat larger than in the same species on the mainland. We thus see that there is no general tendency to the abortion of wings in Madeira, but that it is simply a case of adaptation to new conditions. Those insects
- ↑ Origin of Species, p. 71.
