Hormones and Heredity by J. T. Cunningham
page 18 of 228 (07%)
page 18 of 228 (07%)
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similar to itself; its digestive organs must be adapted to the kind of
food it takes; it must have respiratory organs adapted to breathe in air or water; it must produce eggs able to survive in particular conditions, and so on. One of the most interesting results of the study of the facts of evolution is that each type of animal tends to multiply to such an extent as to occupy the whole earth and adapt itself to all possible conditions. In the Secondary period reptiles so adapted themselves: there were oceanic reptiles, flying reptiles, herbivorous reptiles, carnivorous reptiles. At the present day the Chelonia alone include oceanic, fresh-water, and terrestrial forms. Birds again have adapted themselves to oceanic conditions, to forests, plains, deserts, fresh waters. Mammals have repeated the process. The organs of locomotion in such cases show profound modifications, adapting them to their special functions. One thing to be explained is the origin of adaptations. It is, however, necessary to distinguish between the adapted condition or structure of an organ and the process by which it became adapted in evolution; two ideas which are often confused. The eye would he equally adapted for seeing whether it had been created in its actual condition or gradually evolved. We have to distinguish here, as in other matters, between being and becoming, and, further, to distinguish between two kinds of becoming--namely, the development of the organ in the individual and its evolution in the course of descent. The word 'adaptation' is itself the cause of much fallacious reasoning and confusion of ideas, inasmuch as it suggests a process rather than a condition, and by biological writers is often used at one time to mean the former and at others the latter. We may take the mammary glands of mammals or organs adapted for the secretion of milk, whose only function is obviously the nourishment of the |
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