You see, then, that the struggle for existence is an absolute necessity; and out of this all-essential strife springs what has been well called Natural Selection. What is meant by this will more easily be understood by looking first at Artificial Selection, which has been practised by man, sometimes consciously, and oftener unconsciously, in the process of domesticating a great number of plants and animals. Dogs, sheep, bulls, pigs, horses, fowls, pigeons, cabbages, and other culinary vegetables, strawberries, and all manner of edible fruits, together with gay-coloured, curiously-formed, sweetly-perfumed garden-flowers innumerable, have been, and are still being, subjected to man’s selection. That the wonderful changes which occur are indeed due to man’s repeated choice of the varieties which suit his purposes, is clear from this, that all the remarkable changes have taken place in those particular qualities which man has valued, leaving the other qualities comparatively unaltered. Let it be speed, size, taste, colour, form, temper, the coat, the feathers, the flesh, the muscular strength, the powers of endurance; in a vegetable, let it be the root, the stem, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, the seed, let it be what it will that is of value, that part and that character have been in each case most highly developed. To take a few examples: You are fond of peas, and you sow in your garden what your seedsman tells you are the finest new varieties; you like strawberries, you admire roses, you fancy a good cabbage, you are particular about having a mealy potato; so in each case you plant what you understand to be the best new kinds. What will you say if it turns out that the roses have improved in their roots but not in the bloom, and the potatoes in the bloom but not in their tubers; that the strawberries have remarkably fine leaves but very small fruit; that the peas and the cabbages have indeed enormous stems, while the seed of the one and the leaf of the other are insignificant in size and tasteless to the palate? So, too, if you purchase a race-horse and a pig from the most noted breeders of those animals, will you not be disgusted if it turns out that the horse has a remarkable propensity for fattening, while the pig is distinguished by nothing but its extreme fleetness of foot? These disappointments do not occur, because the variations of domesticated plants and animals are selected by competent persons. Were strawberry-leaves of as much importance in horticulture as they are in heraldry, many fine varieties would soon be exhibited. As soon as the most minute tendency to vary in any particular direction has been descried in any living creature, the fancier can exaggerate the difference to an extent inconceivable to the inexperienced. As a popular illustration of this we may take the Big Gooseberry, which fills so large a space in the newspapers when Parliament is prorogued. A gooseberry has been grown weighing