Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution: His Life and Work

by A. S. Packard

The other factors or agencies are not referred to by Buffon, showing that Darwin was not indebted to Buffon, but thought out the matter in his own independent way.

3. “Fifthly, from their first rudiment or primordium to the termination of their lives, all animals undergo perpetual transformations, which are in part produced by their own exertions in consequence of their desires and aversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of irritations or of associations; and many of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity” (p. 237). The three great objects of desire are, he says, “lust, hunger, and security” (p. 237).

4. Contests of the males for the possession of the females, or law of battle. Under the head of desire he dwells on the desire of the male for the exclusive possession of the female; and “these have acquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose,” as the very thick, shield-like horny skin on the shoulders of the boar, and his tusks, the horns of the stag, the spurs of cocks and quails. “The final cause,” he says, “of this contest among the males seems to be that the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved” (p. 238). This savors so strongly of sexual selection that we wonder very much that Charles Darwin repudiated it as “erroneous.” It is not mentioned by Lamarck, nor is Dr. Darwin’s statement of the exertions and desires of animals at all similar to Lamarck’s, who could not have borrowed his ideas on appetency from Darwin or any other predecessor.

5. The transmission of characters acquired during the lifetime of the parent. This is suggested in the following crude way:

“Thirdly, when we enumerate the great changes produced in the species of animals before their maturity, as, for example, when the offspring reproduces the effects produced upon the parent by accident or cultivation; or the changes produced by the mixture of species, as in mules; or the changes produced probably by the exuberance of nourishment supplied to the fetus, as in monstrous births with additional limbs, many of these enormities of shape are propagated and continued as a variety, at least, if not as a new species of animal. I have seen a breed of cats with an additional claw on every foot; of poultry also with an additional claw, and with wings to their feet, and of others without rumps. Mr. Buffon mentions a breed of dogs without tails, which are common at Rome and Naples, which he supposes to have been produced by a custom, long established, of cutting their tails close off. There are many kinds of pigeons admired for their peculiarities which are more or less thus produced and propagated.”[154]

6. The means of procuring food has, he says, “diversified the forms of all species of animals. Thus the nose of the swine has become hard for the purpose of turning up the soil in search of insects and of roots. The trunk of the elephant is an elongation of the nose for the purpose of pulling down the branches of trees for his food, and for taking up water without bending his knees. Beasts of prey have acquired strong jaws or talons. Cattle have acquired a rough tongue and a rough palate to pull off the blades of grass, as cows and sheep. Some birds have acquired harder beaks to crack nuts, as the parrot. Others have acquired beaks to break the harder seeds, as sparrows. Others for the softer kinds of flowers, or the buds of trees, as the finches. Other birds have acquired long beaks to penetrate the moister soils in search of insects or roots, as woodcocks, and others broad ones to filtrate the water of lakes and to retain aquatic insects. All which seem to have been gradually produced during many generations by the perpetual endeavors of the creature to supply the want of food, and to have been delivered to their posterity with constant improvement of them for the purpose required” (p. 238).

7. The third great want among animals is that of security, which seems to have diversified the forms of their bodies and the color of them; these consist in the means of escaping other animals more powerful than themselves.[155] Hence some animals have acquired wings instead of legs, as the smaller birds, for purposes of escape. Others, great length of fin or of membrane, as the flying-fish and the bat. Others have acquired hard or armed shells, as the tortoise and the Echinus marinus (p. 239).

“The colors of insects,” he says, “and many smaller animals contribute to conceal them from the dangers which prey upon them. Caterpillars which feed on leaves are generally green; earthworms the color of the earth which they inhabit; butterflies, which frequent flowers, are colored like them; small birds which frequent hedges have greenish backs like the leaves, and light-colored bellies like the sky, and are hence less visible to the hawk, who passes under them or over them. Those birds which are much amongst flowers, as the goldfinch (Fringilla carduelis), are furnished with vivid colors. The lark, partridge, hare, are the color of dry vegetables or earth on which they rest. And frogs vary their color with the mud of the streams which they frequent; and those which live on trees are green. Fish, which are generally suspended in water, and swallows, which are generally suspended in air, have their backs the color of the distant ground, and their bellies of the sky. In the colder climates many of these become white during the existence of the snows. Hence there is apparent design in the colors of animals, whilst those of vegetables seem consequent to the other properties of the materials which possess them” (The Loves of the Plants, p. 38, note).

In his Zoonomia (§ xxxix., vi.) Darwin also speaks of the efficient cause of the various colors of the eggs of birds and of the hair and feathers of animals which are adapted to the purpose of concealment. “Thus the snake, and wild cat, and leopard are so colored as to resemble dark leaves and their light interstices” (p. 248). The eggs of hedge-birds are greenish, with dark spots; those of crows and magpies, which are seen from beneath through wicker nests, are white, with dark spots; and those of larks and partridges are russet or brown, like their nests or situations. He adds: “The final cause of their colors is easily understood, as they serve some purpose of the animal, but the efficient cause would seem almost beyond conjecture.” Of all this subject of protective mimicry thus sketched out by the older Darwin, we find no hint or trace in any of Lamarck’s writings.

8. Great length of time. He speaks of the “great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind” (p. 240).