In America, Dr.Cope, the well-known palaeontologist, has long since put forth the same objection, declaring that non-adaptive characters are as numerous as those which are adaptive; but he differs completely from most who hold the same general opinion in considering that they occur chiefly "in the characters of the classes, orders, families, and other higher groups;" and the objection, therefore, is quite distinct from that in which it is urged that "specific characters" are mostly useless.

More recently, Professor G.J.Romanes has urged this difficulty in his paper on "Physiological Selection" (_Journ.

Linn.
Soc._, vol.xix.pp.

338, 344).

He says that the characters "which serve to distinguish allied species are frequently, if not usually, of a kind with which natural selection can have had nothing to do," being without any utilitarian significance.