The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th EditionDarwin, Charles
History
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology); Natural selection
With such structures as the above lamellæ of horn or whalebone, habit
or use can have done little or nothing, as far as we can judge, towards
their development. On the other hand, the transportal of the lower eye
of a flat-fish to the upper side of the head, and the formation of a
prehensile tail, may be attributed almost wholly to continued use,
together with inheritance. With respect to the mammæ of the higher
animals, the most probable conjecture is that primordially the
cutaneous glands over the whole surface of a marsupial sack secreted a
nutritious fluid; and that these glands were improved in function
through natural selection, and concentrated into a confined area, in
which case they would have formed a mamma. There is no more difficulty
in understanding how the branched spines of some ancient Echinoderm,
which served as a defence, became developed through natural selection
into tridactyle pedicellariæ, than in understanding the development of
the pincers of crustaceans, through slight, serviceable modifications
in the ultimate and penultimate segments of a limb, which was at first
used solely for locomotion. In the avicularia and vibracula of the
Polyzoa we have organs widely different in appearance developed from
the same source; and with the vibracula we can understand how the
successive gradations might have been of service. With the pollinia of
orchids, the threads which originally served to tie together the
pollen-grains, can be traced cohering into caudicles; and the steps can
likewise be followed by which viscid matter, such as that secreted by
the stigmas of ordinary flowers, and still subserving nearly but not
quite the same purpose, became attached to the free ends of the
caudicles—all these gradations being of manifest benefit to the plants
in question. With respect to climbing plants, I need not repeat what
has been so lately said.
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