Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/132

 by rivals, or is in process of extinction by enemies, to save itself by adopting new habits or by occupying vacant places in nature. This is the immediate and obvious effect of all the numerous examples of divergence of character which we have pointed out. But there is another and less obvious result, which is, that the greater the diversity in the organisms inhabiting a country or district the greater will be the total amount of life that can be supported there. Hence the continued action of the struggle for existence will tend to bring about more and more diversity in each area, which may be shown to be the case by several kinds of evidence. As an example, a piece of turf, three feet by four in size, was found by Mr. Darwin to contain twenty species of plants, and these twenty species belonged to eighteen genera and to eight orders, showing how greatly they differed from each other. Farmers find that a greater quantity of hay is obtained from ground sown with a variety of genera of grasses, clover, etc., than from similar land sown with one or two species only; and the same principle applies to rotation of crops, plants differing very widely from each other giving the best results. So, in small and uniform islands, and in small ponds of fresh water, the plants and insects, though few in number, are found to be wonderfully varied in character.

The same principle is seen in the naturalisation of plants and animals by man's agency in distant lands, for the species that thrive best and establish themselves permanently are not only very varied among themselves but differ greatly from the native inhabitants. Thus, in the Northern United States there are, according to Dr. Asa Gray, 260 naturalised flowering plants which belong to no less than 162 genera; and of these, 100 genera are not natives of the United States. So, in Australia, the rabbit, though totally unlike any native animal, has increased so much that it probably outnumbers in individuals all the native mammals of the country; and in New Zealand the rabbit and the pig have equally multiplied. Darwin remarks that this "advantage of diversification of structure in the inhabitants of the same region is, in fact, the same as that of the physiological division of labour in the organs of the same body. No physiologist doubts that a