Natural selection will modify the structure of the young in relation to the parent and of the parent in relation to the young.

In social animals it will adapt the structure of each individual for the benefit of the whole community; if the community profits by the selected change.

What natural selection cannot do, is to modify the structure of one species, without giving it any advantage, for the good of another species; and though statements to this effect may be found in works of natural history, I cannot find one case which will bear investigation.

A structure used only once in an animal's life, if of high importance to it, might be modified to any extent by natural selection; for instance, the great jaws possessed by certain insects, used exclusively for opening the cocoon--or the hard tip to the beak of unhatched birds, used for breaking the eggs.

It has been asserted, that of the best short-beaked tumbler-pigeons a greater number perish in the egg than are able to get out of it; so that fanciers assist in the act of hatching.