Page:The Last link.djvu/144

132 lapping scutes; but this mending is not neatly done. It serves the requirement, but it is patchwork; the new shell is such as no tortoise ever possessed before.

Mammals transported into colder countries, or subjected to continued exposure, grow a thicker coat; and the same kind of tree which in a sheltered valley is tall, large-leaved, and soft-wooded, assumes a very different aspect, although perhaps growing into a healthy specimen, when planted on a wind-exposed hill.

There is no room, or, rather, no time, to apply to these cases the principle of many variations or the long-continued accumulation of infinitely small changes. The thing is to be done quickly, or not at all. Nor can we explain the mending of a wound, which implies an activity of countless cells, simply as a case of, or similar to, the reproduction of a lost part; against such an explanation militates the almost absolute unlikelihood of that precise injury having