| → plates. The motive power of the process of natural selection having been economy of wax, together with cells of due strength, and of the proper size and shape for the larvæ; that individual swarm which made the best cells, and wasted least honey in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and having transmitted by inheritance their newly acquired economical instincts to new swarms, which in their turn will have had the best chance of succeeding in the struggle for existence. 1861 |
| plates. 1859 1860 |
| plates; 1866 1869 1872 |
|
| ↑ 1 blocks not present in 1861; present in 1859 1860 1866 1869 1872 |
| The
motive power of the process of natural selection having been economy of wax;
that individual swarm which wasted least
honey in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and having transmitted by inheritance its
newly acquired
economical instinct
to new swarms, which in their turn will have had the best chance of succeeding in the struggle for existence.
|
|
| ←Subtitle not present 1859 1860 1861 Objections
to
the
Theory
of
Natural
Selection
as
applied
to
Instincts:
Neuter
and
Sterile
Insects
.
1866 1869 1872 |
| → away 1861 1866 1869 |
| with its beak 1872 |
|
| → each slight variation of beak, 1861 1866 |
| all the slight individual variations in the shape of the beak, which were 1869 1872 |
|
|
natural selection having taken advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of simpler instincts; natural selection
by slow degrees, more and more
led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a given distance from each other in a double layer, and to build up and excavate the wax along the planes of
bees, of course, no more knowing that they swept their spheres at one particular distance from each other, than they know what are the several angles of the hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic
→plates. The motive power of the process of natural selection having been economy of wax, together with cells of due strength, and of the proper size and shape for the larvæ; that individual swarm which made the best cells, and wasted least honey in the secretion of wax, having succeeded best, and having transmitted by inheritance their newly acquired economical instincts to new swarms, which in their turn will have had the best chance of succeeding in the struggle for existence.
↑
→
|
| It has been objected to the foregoing view
the origin of
that "the variations of structure and of instinct must have been simultaneous and accurately adjusted to each other, as a modification in the one without an immediate corresponding change in the other would have been fatal." The force of this objection
entirely
on the assumption that the changes in
and structure are abrupt. To take as an illustration the case of the larger titmouse (Parus major) alluded to in
chapter: this bird often holds the seeds of the yew between its feet on a branch, and hammers
→away
till it gets
the kernel. Now what special difficulty would there be in natural selection preserving
→each slight variation of beak,
better and better adapted to break open
until a beak was formed, as well constructed for this purpose as that
|
