e reduction of a
part, until at last it has become rudimentary--as in the case of the
eyes of animals inhabiting dark caverns, and of the wings of birds
inhabiting oceanic islands, which have seldom been forced by beasts
of prey to take flight, and have ultimately lost the power of
flying. Again, an organ, useful under certain conditions, might
become injurious under others, as _with the wings of beetles living
on small and exposed islands_; and in this case natural selection
will have aided in reducing the organ, until it was rendered
harmless and rudimentary [italics mine]." {266}

So that just as an undefined amount of use and disuse was introduced
on the earlier page to supplement the effects of natural selection
in respect of the wings of beetles on small and exposed islands, we
have here an undefined amount of natural selection introduced to
supplement the effects of use and disuse in respect of the identical
phenomena. In the one passage we find that natural selection has
been the main agent in reducing the wings, though use and disuse
have had an appreciable share in the result; in the other, it is use
and disuse that have been the main agents, though an appreciable
share in the result must be ascribed to natural selection.

Besides, who has seen the uncles and aunts going away with the
uniformity that is necessary for Mr. Darwin's contention? We know
that birds and insects do often get blown out to sea and perish, but
in order to establish Mr. Darwin's position we want the evidence of
those who watched the reduction of the wings during the many
generations in the course of which it was being effected, and who
can testify that all, or the overwhelming majority, of the beetles
born with fairly well-developed wings got blown out to sea, while
those alone survived whose wings were congenitally degenerate. Who
saw them go, or can point to analogous cases so conclusive as to
compel assent from any equitable thinker?

Darwinians of the stamp of Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Professor Ray
Lankester, or Mr. Romanes, insist on their pound of flesh in the
matter of irrefragable demonstration. They complain of us for not
bringing forward someone who has been able to detect the movement of
the hour-hand of a watch during a second of time, and when we fail
to do so, declare triumphantly that we have no evidence that there
is any connection between the beating of a second and the movement
of the hour-hand. When we say that ra