Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading, I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl—that, and to provide some fresh meat for his table. They had charming sport. They killed seventy-two of those great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the seventy-one to rot. In order to determine the difference between an anaconda and an earl—if any—I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda's cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The facts stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn't; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he had no use for, but the anaconda doesn't. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.
我的某些实验着实奇怪。我在查阅资料时碰到一个案例——许多年前，一些猎人为了招待一位英国的伯爵，在北美大平原上组织了一次水牛狩猎——同时为了在他的餐桌上添些新鲜的肉食。他们玩得很尽兴，猎杀了 72头水牛，然而他们只吃了其中一头的一部分，把其余的71头扔在那里任其腐烂。为了确定蟒蛇与伯爵有何区别——如果说真的存在区别的话—— 我让人把7头小牛赶进一条蟒蛇的笼子里。那只满怀感激的爬行动物立即缠住一头牛犊，把它吞到腹中，然后就心满意足地趴在那里。它对其他牛犊不再感兴趣，也没有表现出要伤害它们的样子。我用其他蟒蛇做了同样的实验，结果总是如此。这些事实已经证明，蟒蛇和 伯爵之间的区别在于：伯爵是残忍的，而蟒蛇不是；伯爵肆意破坏他并不需要的东西，而蟒蛇没有。这似乎表明，蟒蛇不是由伯爵退化而来的，而且似乎表明，伯爵是由蟒蛇退化而来的。只是在退化的过程中伯爵丧失了蟒蛇的优点。