From these it results that the animals and plants naturally become better adapted to the situation in which they are placed. When, as is constantly happening through the history of the earth, a change occurs in the physical geography of any region, when a plain is lifted to be a plateau, or a mountain chain is submerged until it becomes a row of small islands, this alteration will produce uncommon hardships among animals, even though they were well fitted to the old conditions. Any animal or any species of animals which meets such a calamity has before it only three possible outcomes of the struggle. First it may be plastic enough and it may vary enough in the right direction to adjust itself to the changed conditions. In this case it and a favored few like it will occupy the altered territory. The second possibility is that it may migrate while the actual change is going on, thus remaining in the sort of situation suited to it and its kind. The third possibility is the one which overtakes a great majority of animals--they die. Even the entire line dies out, and the strata of the rocks are filled with the bones, shells, and teeth of such as have met this fate. They have become extinct. Thus far in this chapter we have been considering the influences under which it is conceivable that animals should advance. There is no question whatever that there are too many animals born, nor is there any possible question that a very large proportion of them must certainly die. There is equally no doubt that every animal produces after its own kind, and that its offspring, while they resemble it closely, still vary a little from it and from each other. This fact is perfectly plain to the most superficial observer who thinks on the matter at all. It is not so plain, nor is it easily demonstrated, that all of these acting together do surely, even if slowly, alter the form and behavior of the animal world. It is difficult to prove that there is going on under our eyes a steady and real improvement in the adaptation of the animals and plants around us to the situation in which they are placed. As far back as man's memory runs they seem to have been about what they now are; as far even as man's historical record runs they seem to have suffered no great alteration. The Egyptian of the old tombs is much like the Egyptian of the same rank to-day. The African of the tombs has the African features of to-day. Under such circumstances it is hard to prove that there is a steady and undoubted advance. For the most part the balance of the animal world is fairly even, and any species does not ordinarily change rapidly enough or migrate widely enough to show us its new features. It is difficult to see the struggle which we are so sure is going on. The life of animals is so hidden in many of its details that their joys and sorrows, if such we may call them, scarcely fall under our observation. Now and then an opportunity comes to see the process of