The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication Volume II Part 24

It is generally necessary that an organism should be exposed during several generations to changed conditions or habits, in order that any modification thus acquired should appear in the offspring. This may be partly due to the changes not being at first marked enough to catch attention, but this explanation is insufficient; and I can account for the fact only by the a.s.sumption, which we shall see under the head of reversion is strongly supported, that gemmules derived from each unmodified unit or part are transmitted in large numbers to successive generations, and that the gemmules derived from the same unit after it has been modified go on multiplying under the same favourable conditions which first caused the modification, until at last they become sufficiently numerous to overpower and supplant the old gemmules.

A difficulty may be here noticed; we have seen that there is an important difference in the frequency, though not in the nature, of the variations in plants propagated by s.e.xual and as.e.xual generation. As far as variability depends on the imperfect action of the reproductive organs under changed conditions, we can at once see why plants propagated as.e.xually should be far less variable than those propagated s.e.xually. With respect to the direct action of changed conditions, we know that organisms produced from buds do not pa.s.s through the earlier phases of development; they will therefore not be exposed, at that period of life when structure is most readily modified, to the various causes inducing variability in the same manner as are embryos and young larval forms; but whether this is a sufficient explanation I know not.

With respect to variations due to reversion, there is a similar difference between plants propagated from buds and seeds. Many varieties can be propagated securely by buds, but generally or invariably revert to their parent-forms by seed. So, also, hybridised plants can be multiplied to any extent by buds, but are continually liable to reversion by seed,--that is, to the loss of their hybrid or intermediate character. I can offer no satisfactory explanation of these facts. Plants with variegated leaves, phloxes with striped flowers, barberries with seedless fruit, can all be securely propagated by buds taken from the stem or branches; but buds from the roots of these plants almost invariably lose their character and revert to their former condition. This latter fact is also inexplicable, unless buds developed from the roots are as distinct from those on the stem, as is one bud on the stem from another, and we know that these latter behave like independent organisms.

Finally, we see that on the hypothesis of pangenesis variability depends on at least two distinct groups of causes. Firstly, the deficiency, superabundance, and transposition of gemmules, and the redevelopment of those which have long been dormant; the gemmules themselves not having undergone any modification; and such changes will amply account for much fluctuating variability.

Secondly, the direct action of changed conditions on the organisation, and of the increased use or disuse of parts; and in this case the gemmules from the modified units will be themselves modified, and, when sufficiently multiplied, will supplant the old gemmules and be developed into new structures.

Turning now to the laws of Inheritance. If we suppose a h.o.m.ogeneous gelatinous protozoon to vary and a.s.sume a reddish colour, a minute separated particle would naturally, as it grew to full size, retain the same colour; and we should have the simplest form of inheritance. (27/70. This is the view taken by Prof. Hackel in his 'Generelle Morphologie' b. 2 s. 171, who says: "Lediglich die partielle Ident.i.tat der specifisch const.i.tuirten Materie im elterlichen und im kindlichen Organismus, die Theilung dieser Materie bei der Fortpflanzung, ist die Ursache der Erblichkeit.") Precisely the same view may be extended to the infinitely numerous and diversified units of which the whole body of one of the higher animals is composed; the separated particles being our gemmules. We have already sufficiently discussed by implication, the important principle of inheritance at corresponding ages. Inheritance as limited by s.e.x and by the season of the year (for instance with animals becoming white in winter) is intelligible if we may believe that the elective affinities of the units of the body are slightly different in the two s.e.xes, especially at maturity, and in one or both s.e.xes at different seasons, so that they unite with different gemmules. It should be remembered that, in the discussion on the abnormal transposition of organs, we have seen reason to believe that such elective affinities are readily modified. But I shall soon have to recur to s.e.xual and seasonal inheritance. These several laws are therefore explicable to a large extent through pangenesis, and on no other hypothesis which has as yet been advanced.

But it appears at first sight a fatal objection to our hypothesis that a part or organ may be removed during several successive generations, and if the operation be not followed by disease, the lost part reappears in the offspring. Dogs and horses formerly had their tails docked during many generations without any inherited effect; although, as we have seen, there is some reason to believe that the tailless condition of certain sheep-dogs is due to such inheritance. Circ.u.mcision has been practised by the Jews from a remote period, and in most cases the effects of the operation are not visible in the offspring; though some maintain that an inherited effect does occasionally appear. If inheritance depends on the presence of disseminated gemmules derived from all the units of the body, why does not the amputation or mutilation of a part, especially if effected on both s.e.xes, invariably affect the offspring? The answer in accordance with our hypothesis probably is that gemmules multiply and are transmitted during a long series of generations--as we see in the reappearance of zebrine stripes on the horse--in the reappearance of muscles and other structures in man which are proper to his lowly organised progenitors, and in many other such cases. Therefore the long-continued inheritance of a part which has been removed during many generations is no real anomaly, for gemmules formerly derived from the part are multiplied and transmitted from generation to generation.

We have as yet spoken only of the removal of parts, when not followed by morbid action: but when the operation is thus followed, it is certain that the deficiency is sometimes inherited. In a former chapter instances were given, as of a cow, the loss of whose horn was followed by suppuration, and her calves were dest.i.tute of a horn on the same side of their heads. But the evidence which admits of no doubt is that given by Brown-Sequard with respect to guinea-pigs, which after their sciatic nerves had been divided, gnawed off their own gangrenous toes, and the toes of their offspring were deficient in at least thirteen instances on the corresponding feet. The inheritance of the lost part in several of these cases is all the more remarkable as only one parent was affected; but we know that a congenital deficiency is often transmitted from one parent alone--for instance, the offspring of hornless cattle of either s.e.x, when crossed with perfect animals, are often hornless.

How, then, in accordance with our hypothesis can we account for mutilations being sometimes strongly inherited, if they are followed by diseased action?

The answer probably is that all the gemmules of the mutilated or amputated part are gradually attracted to the diseased surface during the reparative process, and are there destroyed by the morbid action.

A few words must be added on the complete abortion of organs. When a part becomes diminished by disuse prolonged during many generations, the principle of economy of growth, together with intercrossing, will tend to reduce it still further as previously explained, but this will not account for the complete or almost complete obliteration of, for instance, a minute papilla of cellular tissue representing a pistil, or of a microscopically minute nodule of bone representing a tooth. In certain cases of suppression not yet completed, in which a rudiment occasionally reappears through reversion, dispersed gemmules derived from this part must, according to our view, still exist; we must therefore suppose that the cells, in union with which the rudiment was formerly developed, fail in their affinity for such gemmules, except in the occasional cases of reversion. But when the abortion is complete and final, the gemmules themselves no doubt perish; nor is this in any way improbable, for, though a vast number of active and long-dormant gemmules are nourished in each living creature, yet there must be some limit to their number; and it appears natural that gemmules derived from reduced and useless parts would be more liable to perish than those freshly derived from other parts which are still in full functional activity.

The last subject that need be discussed, namely, Reversion, rests on the principle that transmission and development, though generally acting in conjunction, are distinct powers; and the transmission of gemmules with their subsequent development shows us how this is possible. We plainly see the distinction in the many cases in which a grandfather transmits to his grandson, through his daughter, characters which she does not, or cannot, possess. But before proceeding, it will be advisable to say a few words about latent or dormant characters. Most, or perhaps all, of the secondary characters, which appertain to one s.e.x, lie dormant in the other s.e.x; that is, gemmules capable of development into the secondary male s.e.xual characters are included within the female; and conversely female characters in the male: we have evidence of this in certain masculine characters, both corporeal and mental, appearing in the female, when her ovaria are diseased or when they fail to act from old age. In like manner female characters appear in castrated males, as in the shape of the horns of the ox, and in the absence of horns in castrated stags. Even a slight change in the conditions of life due to confinement sometimes suffices to prevent the development of masculine characters in male animals, although their reproductive organs are not permanently injured. In the many cases in which masculine characters are periodically renewed, these are latent at other seasons; inheritance as limited by s.e.x and season being here combined. Again, masculine characters generally lie dormant in male animals until they arrive at the proper age for reproduction. The curious case formerly given of a Hen which a.s.sumed the masculine characters, not of her own breed but of a remote progenitor, ill.u.s.trates the close connection between latent s.e.xual characters and ordinary reversion.

With those animals and plants which habitually produce several forms, as with certain b.u.t.terflies described by Mr. Wallace, in which three female forms and one male form co-exist, or, as with the trimorphic species of Lythrum and Oxalis, gemmules capable of reproducing these different forms must be latent in each individual.

Insects are occasionally produced with one side or one quarter of their bodies like that of the male, with the other half or three-quarters like that of the female. In such cases the two sides are sometimes wonderfully different in structure, and are separated from each other by a sharp line. As gemmules derived from every part are present in each individual of both s.e.xes, it must be the elective affinities of the nascent cells which in these cases differ abnormally on the two sides of the body. Almost the same principle comes into play with those animals, for instance, certain gasteropods and Verruca amongst cirripedes, which normally have the two sides of the body constructed on a very different plan; and yet a nearly equal number of individuals have either side modified in the same remarkable manner.

Reversion, in the ordinary sense of the word, acts so incessantly, that it evidently forms an essential part of the general law of inheritance. It occurs with beings, however propagated, whether by buds or seminal generation, and sometimes may be observed with advancing age even in the same individual. The tendency to reversion is often induced by a change of conditions, and in the plainest manner by crossing. Crossed forms of the first generation are generally nearly intermediate in character between their two parents; but in the next generation the offspring commonly revert to one or both of their grandparents, and occasionally to more remote ancestors. How can we account for these facts? Each unit in a hybrid must throw off, according to the doctrine of pangenesis, an abundance of hybridised gemmules, for crossed plants can be readily and largely propagated by buds; but by the same hypothesis dormant gemmules derived from both pure parent-forms are likewise present; and as these gemmules retain their normal condition, they would, it is probable, be enabled to multiply largely during the lifetime of each hybrid. Consequently the s.e.xual elements of a hybrid will include both pure and hybridised gemmules; and when two hybrids pair, the combination of pure gemmules derived from the one hybrid with the pure gemmules of the same parts derived from the other, would necessarily lead to complete reversion of character; and it is, perhaps, not too bold a supposition that unmodified and undeteriorated gemmules of the same nature would be especially apt to combine.

Pure gemmules in combination with hybridised gemmules would lead to partial reversion. And lastly, hybridised gemmules derived from both parent-hybrids would simply reproduce the original hybrid form. (27/71. In these remarks I, in fact, follow Naudin, who speaks of the elements or essences of the two species which are crossed. See his excellent memoir in the 'Nouvelles Archives du Museum' tome 1 page 151.) All these cases and degrees of reversion incessantly occur.

It was shown in the fifteenth chapter that certain characters are antagonistic to each other or do not readily blend; hence, when two animals with antagonistic characters are crossed, it might well happen that a sufficiency of gemmules in the male alone for the reproduction of his peculiar characters, and in the female alone for the reproduction of her peculiar characters, would not be present; and in this case dormant gemmules derived from the same part in some remote progenitor might easily gain the ascendancy, and cause the reappearance of the long-lost character. For instance, when black and white pigeons, or black and white fowls, are crossed,--colours which do not readily blend,--blue plumage in the one case, evidently derived from the rock-pigeon, and red plumage in the other case, derived from the wild jungle-c.o.c.k, occasionally reappear. With uncrossed breeds the same result follows, under conditions which favour the multiplication and development of certain dormant gemmules, as when animals become feral and revert to their pristine character.

A certain number of gemmules being requisite for the development of each character, as is known to be the case from several spermatozoa or pollen- grains being necessary for fertilisation, and time favouring their multiplication, will perhaps account for the curious cases, insisted on by Mr.

Sedgwick, of certain diseases which regularly appear in alternate generations.

This likewise holds good, more or less strictly, with other weakly inherited modifications. Hence, as I have heard it remarked, certain diseases appear to gain strength by the intermission of a generation. The transmission of dormant gemmules during many successive generations is hardly in itself more improbable, as previously remarked, than the retention during many ages of rudimentary organs, or even only of a tendency to the production of a rudiment; but there is no reason to suppose that dormant gemmules can be transmitted and propagated for ever. Excessively minute and numerous as they are believed to be, an infinite number derived, during a long course of modification and descent, from each unit of each progenitor, could not be supported or nourished by the organism. But it does not seem improbable that certain gemmules, under favourable conditions, should be retained and go on multiplying for a much longer period than others. Finally, on the view here given, we certainly gain some insight into the wonderful fact that the child may depart from the type of both its parents, and resemble its grandparents, or ancestors removed by many hundreds of generations.

CONCLUSION.

The hypothesis of Pangenesis, as applied to the several great cla.s.ses of facts just discussed, no doubt is extremely complex, but so are the facts. The chief a.s.sumption is that all the units of the body, besides having the universally admitted power of growing by self-division, throw off minute gemmules which are dispersed through the system. Nor can this a.s.sumption be considered as too bold, for we know from the cases of graft-hybridisation that formative matter of some kind is present in the tissues of plants, which is capable of combining with that included in another individual, and of reproducing every unit of the whole organism. But we have further to a.s.sume that the gemmules grow, multiply, and aggregate themselves into buds and the s.e.xual elements; their development depending on their union with other nascent cells or units.

They are also believed to be capable of transmission in a dormant state, like seeds in the ground, to successive generations.

In a highly-organised animal, the gemmules thrown off from each different unit throughout the body must be inconceivably numerous and minute. Each unit of each part, as it changes during development, and we know that some insects undergo at least twenty metamorphoses, must throw off its gemmules. But the same cells may long continue to increase by self-division, and even become modified by absorbing peculiar nutriment, without necessarily throwing off modified gemmules. All organic beings, moreover, include many dormant gemmules derived from their grandparents and more remote progenitors, but not from all their progenitors. These almost infinitely numerous and minute gemmules are contained within each bud, ovule, spermatozoon, and pollen-grain. Such an admission will be declared impossible; but number and size are only relative difficulties. Independent organisms exist which are barely visible under the highest powers of the microscope, and their germs must be excessively minute.

Particles of infectious matter, so small as to be wafted by the wind or to adhere to smooth paper, will multiply so rapidly as to infect within a short time the whole body of a large animal. We should also reflect on the admitted number and minuteness of the molecules composing a particle of ordinary matter. The difficulty, therefore, which at first appears insurmountable, of believing in the existence of gemmules so numerous and small as they must be according to our hypothesis, has no great weight.

The units of the body are generally admitted by physiologists to be autonomous. I go one step further and a.s.sume that they throw off reproductive gemmules. Thus an organism does not generate its kind as a whole, but each separate unit generates its kind. It has often been said by naturalists that each cell of a plant has the potential capacity of reproducing the whole plant; but it has this power only in virtue of containing gemmules derived from every part. When a cell or unit is from some cause modified, the gemmules derived from it will be in like manner modified. If our hypothesis be provisionally accepted, we must look at all the forms of as.e.xual reproduction, whether occurring at maturity or during youth, as fundamentally the same, and dependent on the mutual aggregation and multiplication of the gemmules. The regrowth of an amputated limb and the healing of a wound is the same process partially carried out. Buds apparently include nascent cells, belonging to that stage of development at which the budding occurs, and these cells are ready to unite with the gemmules derived from the next succeeding cells. The s.e.xual elements, on the other hand, do not include such nascent cells; and the male and female elements taken separately do not contain a sufficient number of gemmules for independent development, except in the cases of parthenogenesis. The development of each being, including all the forms of metamorphosis and metagenesis, depends on the presence of gemmules thrown off at each period of life, and on their development, at a corresponding period, in union with preceding cells. Such cells may be said to be fertilised by the gemmules which come next in due order of development. Thus the act of ordinary impregnation and the development of each part in each being are closely a.n.a.logous processes. The child, strictly speaking, does not grow into the man, but includes germs which slowly and successively become developed and form the man. In the child, as well as in the adult, each part generates the same part.

Inheritance must be looked at as merely a form of growth, like the self- division of a lowly-organised unicellular organism. Reversion depends on the transmission from the forefather to his descendants of dormant gemmules, which occasionally become developed under certain known or unknown conditions. Each animal and plant may be compared with a bed of soil full of seeds, some of which soon germinate, some lie dormant for a period, whilst others perish.

When we hear it said that a man carries in his const.i.tution the seeds of an inherited disease, there is much truth in the expression. No other attempt, as far as I am aware, has been made, imperfect as this confessedly is, to connect under one point of view these several grand cla.s.ses of facts. An organic being is a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and numerous as the stars in heaven.

CHAPTER 2.XXVIII.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

DOMESTICATION.

NATURE AND CAUSES OF VARIABILITY.

SELECTION.

DIVERGENCE AND DISTINCTNESS OF CHARACTER.

EXTINCTION OF RACES.

CIRc.u.mSTANCES FAVOURABLE TO SELECTION BY MAN.

ANTIQUITY OF CERTAIN RACES.

THE QUESTION WHETHER EACH PARTICULAR VARIATION HAS BEEN SPECIALLY PREORDAINED.

As summaries have been added to nearly all the chapters, and as, in the chapter on pangenesis, various subjects, such as the forms of reproduction, inheritance, reversion, the causes and laws of variability, etc., have been recently discussed, I will here only make a few general remarks on the more important conclusions which may be deduced from the multifarious details given throughout this work.

Savages in all parts of the world easily succeed in taming wild animals; and those inhabiting any country or island, when first visited by man, would probably have been still more easily tamed. Complete subjugation generally depends on an animal being social in its habits, and on receiving man as the chief of the herd or family. In order that an animal should be domesticated it must be fertile under changed conditions of life, and this is far from being always the case. An animal would not have been worth the labour of domestication, at least during early times, unless of service to man. From these circ.u.mstances the number of domesticated animals has never been large.

With respect to plants, I have shown in the ninth chapter how their varied uses were probably first discovered, and the early steps in their cultivation.

Man could not have known, when he first domesticated an animal or plant, whether it would flourish and multiply when transported to other countries, therefore he could not have been thus influenced in his choice. We see that the close adaptation of the reindeer and camel to extremely cold and hot countries has not prevented their domestication. Still less could man have foreseen whether his animals and plants would vary in succeeding generations and thus give birth to new races; and the small capacity of variability in the goose has not prevented its domestication from a remote epoch.

With extremely few exceptions, all animals and plants which have been long domesticated have varied greatly. It matters not under what climate, or for what purpose they are kept, whether as food for man or beast, for draught or hunting, for clothing or mere pleasure,--under all these circ.u.mstances races have been produced which differ more from one another than do the forms which in a state of nature are ranked as different species. Why certain animals and plants have varied more under domestication than others we do not know, any more than why some are rendered more sterile than others under changed conditions of life. But we have to judge of the amount of variation which our domestic productions have undergone, chiefly by the number and amount of difference between the races which have been formed, and we can often clearly see why many and distinct races have not been formed, namely, because slight successive variations have not been steadily acc.u.mulated; and such variations will never be acc.u.mulated if an animal or plant be not closely observed, much valued, and kept in large numbers.

The fluctuating, and, as far as we can judge, never-ending variability of our domesticated productions,--the plasticity of almost their whole organisation,- -is one of the most important lessons which we learn from the numerous details given in the earlier chapters of this work. Yet domesticated animals and plants can hardly have been exposed to greater changes in their conditions of life than have many natural species during the incessant geological, geographical, and climatal changes to which the world has been subject; but domesticated productions will often have been exposed to more sudden changes and to less continuously uniform conditions. As man has domesticated so many animals and plants belonging to widely different cla.s.ses, and as he certainly did not choose with prophetic instinct those species which would vary most, we may infer that all natural species, if exposed to a.n.a.logous conditions, would, on an average, vary to the same degree. Few men at the present day will maintain that animals and plants were created with a tendency to vary, which long remained dormant, in order that fanciers in after ages might rear, for instance, curious breeds of the fowl, pigeon, or canary-bird.

From several causes it is difficult to judge of the amount of modification which our domestic productions have undergone. In some cases the primitive parent-stock has become extinct; or it cannot be recognised with certainty, owing to its supposed descendants having been so much modified. In other cases two or more closely-allied forms, after being domesticated, have crossed; and then it is difficult to estimate how much of the character of the present descendants ought to be attributed to variation, and how much to the influence of the several parent-stocks. But the degree to which our domesticated breeds have been modified by the crossing of distinct species has probably been much exaggerated by some authors. A few individuals of one form would seldom permanently affect another form existing in greater numbers; for, without careful selection, the stain of the foreign blood would soon be obliterated, and during early and barbarous times, when our animals were first domesticated, such care would seldom have been taken.

There is good reason to believe in the case of the dog, ox, pig, and of some other animals, that several of our races are descended from distinct wild prototypes; nevertheless the belief in the multiple origin of our domesticated animals has been extended by some few naturalists and by many breeders to an unauthorised extent. Breeders refuse to look at the whole subject under a single point of view; I have heard it said by a man, who maintained that our fowls were descended from at least half-a-dozen aboriginal species, that the evidence of the common origin of pigeons, ducks and rabbits, was of no avail with respect to fowls. Breeders overlook the improbability of many species having been domesticated at an early and barbarous period. They do not consider the improbability of species having existed in a state of nature which, if they resembled our present domestic breeds, would have been highly abnormal in comparison with all their congeners. They maintain that certain species, which formerly existed, have become extinct, or are now unknown, although formerly known. The a.s.sumption of so much recent extinction is no difficulty in their eyes; for they do not judge of its probability by the facility or difficulty of the extinction of other closely-allied wild forms.

Lastly, they often ignore the whole subject of geographical distribution as completely as if it were the result of chance.

Although from the reasons just a.s.signed it is often difficult to judge accurately of the amount of change which our domesticated productions have undergone, yet this can be ascertained in the cases in which all the breeds are known to be descended from a single species,--as with the pigeon, duck, rabbit, and almost certainly with the fowl; and by the aid of a.n.a.logy this can be judged of to a certain extent with domesticated animals descended from several wild stocks. It is impossible to read the details given in the earlier chapters and in many published works, or to visit our various exhibitions, without being deeply impressed with the extreme variability of our domesticated animals and cultivated plants. No part of the organisation escapes the tendency to vary. The variations generally affect parts of small vital or physiological importance, but so it is with the differences which exist between closely-allied species. In these unimportant characters there is often a greater difference between the breeds of the same species than between the natural species of the same genus, as Isidore Geoffroy has shown to be the case with size, and as is often the case with the colour, texture, form, etc., of the hair, feathers, horns, and other dermal appendages.

It has often been a.s.serted that important parts never vary under domestication, but this is a complete error. Look at the skull of the pig in any one of the highly improved breeds, with the occipital condyles and other parts greatly modified; or look at that of the niata ox. Or, again, in the several breeds of the rabbit, observe the elongated skull, with the differently shaped occipital foramen, atlas, and other cervical vertebrae. The whole shape of the brain, together with the skull, has been modified in Polish fowls; in other breeds of the fowl the number of the vertebrae and the forms of the cervical vertebrae have been changed. In certain pigeons the shape of the lower jaw, the relative length of the tongue, the size of the nostrils and eyelids, the number and shape of the ribs, the form and size of the oesophagus, have all varied. In certain quadrupeds the length of the intestines has been much increased or diminished. With plants we see wonderful differences in the stones of various fruits. In the Cucurbitaceae several highly important characters have varied, such as the sessile position of the stigmas on the ovarium, the position of the carpels, and the projection of the ovarium out of the receptacle. But it would be useless to run through the many facts given in the earlier chapters.

It is notorious how greatly the mental disposition, tastes, habits, consensual movements, loquacity or silence, and tone of voice have varied and been inherited in our domesticated animals. The dog offers the most striking instance of changed mental attributes, and these differences cannot be accounted for by descent from distinct wild types.

New characters may appear and old ones disappear at any stage of development, being inherited at a corresponding stage. We see this in the difference between the eggs, the down on the chickens and the first plumage of the various breeds of the fowl; and still more plainly in the differences between the caterpillars and coc.o.o.ns of the various breeds of the silk-moth. These facts, simple as they appear, throw light on the differences between the larval and adult states of allied natural species, and on the whole great subject of embryology. New characters first appearing late in life are apt to become attached exclusively to that s.e.x in which they first arose, or they may be developed in a much higher degree in this than in the other s.e.x; or again, after having become attached to one s.e.x, they may be transferred to the opposite s.e.x. These facts, and more especially the circ.u.mstance that new characters seem to be particularly liable, from some unknown cause, to become attached to the male s.e.x, have an important bearing on the acquirement of secondary s.e.xual characters by animals in a state of nature.

It has sometimes been said that our domestic races do not differ in const.i.tutional peculiarities, but this cannot be maintained. In our improved cattle, pigs, etc., the period of maturity, including that of the second dent.i.tion, has been much hastened. The period of gestation varies much, and has been modified in a fixed manner in one or two cases. In some breeds of poultry and pigeons the period at which the down and the first plumage are acquired, differs. The number of moults through which the larvae of silk-moths pa.s.s, varies. The tendency to fatten, to yield much milk, to produce many young or eggs at a birth or during life, differs in different breeds. We find different degrees of adaptation to climate, and different tendencies to certain diseases, to the attacks of parasites, and to the action of certain vegetable poisons. With plants, adaptation to certain soils, the power of resisting frost, the period of flowering and fruiting, the duration of life, the period of shedding the leaves or of retaining them throughout the winter, the proportion and nature of certain chemical compounds in the tissues or seeds, all vary.

There is, however, one important const.i.tutional difference between domestic races and species; I refer to the sterility which almost invariably follows, in a greater or less degree, when species are crossed, and to the perfect fertility of the most distinct domestic races, with the exception of a very few plants, when similarly crossed. It is certainly a most remarkable fact that many closely-allied species, which in appearance differ extremely little, should yield when crossed only a few more or less sterile offspring, or none at all; whilst domestic races which differ conspicuously from each other are, when united, remarkably fertile, and yield perfectly fertile offspring. But this fact is not in reality so inexplicable as it at first appears. In the first place, it was clearly shown in the nineteenth chapter that the sterility of crossed species does not depend chiefly on differences in their external structure or general const.i.tution, but on differences in the reproductive system, a.n.a.logous to those which cause the lessened fertility of the illegitimate unions of dimorphic and trimorphic plants. In the second place, the Pallasian doctrine, that species after having been long domesticated lose their natural tendency to sterility when crossed, has been shown to be highly probable or almost certain. We cannot avoid this conclusion when we reflect on the parentage and present fertility of the several breeds of the dog, of the Indian or humped and European cattle, and of the two chief kinds of pigs.

Hence it would be unreasonable to expect that races formed under domestication should acquire sterility when crossed, whilst at the same time we admit that domestication eliminates the normal sterility of crossed species. Why with closely-allied species their reproductive systems should almost invariably have been modified in so peculiar a manner as to be mutually incapable of acting on each other--though in unequal degrees in the two s.e.xes, as shown by the difference in fertility between reciprocal crosses of the same species--we do not know, but may with much probability infer the cause to be as follows.

Most natural species have been habituated to nearly uniform conditions of life for an incomparably longer time than have domestic races; and we positively know that changed conditions exert an especial and powerful influence on the reproductive system. Hence this difference may well account for the difference in the power of reproduction between domestic races when crossed and species when crossed. It is probably in chief part owing to the same cause that domestic races can be suddenly transported from one climate to another, or placed under widely different conditions, and yet retain in most cases their fertility unimpaired; whilst a mult.i.tude of species subjected to lesser changes are rendered incapable of breeding.

The offspring of crossed domestic races and of crossed species resemble each other in most respects, with the one important exception of fertility; they often partake in the same unequal degree of the characters of their parents, one of which is often prepotent over the other; and they are liable to reversion of the same kind. By successive crosses one species may be made to absorb completely another, and so it notoriously is with races. The latter resemble species in many other ways. They sometimes inherit their newly- acquired characters almost or even quite as firmly as species. The conditions leading to variability and the laws governing its nature appear to be the same in both. Varieties can be cla.s.sed in groups under groups, like species under genera, and these under families and orders; and the cla.s.sification may be either artificial,--that is, founded on any arbitrary character,--or natural.

With varieties a natural cla.s.sification is certainly founded, and with species is apparently founded, on community of descent, together with the amount of modification which the forms have undergone. The characters by which domestic varieties differ from one another are more variable than those distinguishing species, though hardly more so than with certain polymorphic species; but this greater degree of variability is not surprising, as varieties have generally been exposed within recent times to fluctuating conditions of life, and are much more liable to have been crossed; they are also in many cases still undergoing, or have recently undergone, modification by man's methodical or unconscious selection.

Domestic varieties as a general rule certainly differ from one another in less important parts than do species; and when important differences occur, they are seldom firmly fixed; but this fact is intelligible, if we consider man's method of selection. In the living animal or plant he cannot observe internal modifications in the more important organs; nor does he regard them as long as they are compatible with health and life. What does the breeder care about any slight change in the molar teeth of his pigs, or for an additional molar tooth in the dog; or for any change in the intestinal ca.n.a.l or other internal organ?

The breeder cares for the flesh of his cattle being well marbled with fat, and for an acc.u.mulation of fat within the abdomen of his sheep, and this he has effected. What would the floriculturist care for any change in the structure of the ovarium or of the ovules? As important internal organs are certainly liable to numerous slight variations, and as these would probably be transmitted, for many strange monstrosities are inherited, man could undoubtedly effect a certain amount of change in these organs. When he has produced any modification in an important part, he has generally done so unintentionally, in correlation with some other conspicuous part. For instance, he has given ridges and protuberances to the skulls of fowls, by attending to the form of the comb, or to the plume of feathers on the head. By attending to the external form of the pouter-pigeon, he has enormously increased the size of the oesophagus, and has added to the number of the ribs, and given them greater breadth. With the carrier-pigeon, by increasing through steady selection the wattles on the upper mandible, he has greatly modified the form of the lower mandible; and so in many other cases. Natural species, on the other hand, have been modified exclusively for their own good, to fit them for infinitely diversified conditions of life, to avoid enemies of all kinds, and to struggle against a host of compet.i.tors. Hence, under such complex conditions, it would often happen that modifications of the most varied kinds, in important as well as in unimportant parts, would be advantageous or even necessary; and they would slowly but surely be acquired through the survival of the fittest. Still more important is the fact that various indirect modifications would likewise arise through the law of correlated variation.

Domestic breeds often have an abnormal or semi-monstrous character, as amongst dogs, the Italian greyhound, bulldog, Blenheim spaniel, and bloodhound,--some breeds of cattle and pigs,--several breeds of the fowl,--and the chief breeds of the pigeon. In such abnormal breeds, parts which differ but slightly or not at all in the allied natural species, have been greatly modified. This may be accounted for by man's often selecting, especially at first, conspicuous and semi-monstrous deviations of structure. We should, however, be cautious in deciding what deviations ought to be called monstrous: there can hardly be a doubt that, if the brush of horse-like hair on the breast of the turkey-c.o.c.k had first appeared in the domesticated bird, it would have been considered as a monstrosity; the great plume of feathers on the head of the Polish c.o.c.k has been thus designated, though plumes are common on the heads of many kinds of birds; we might call the wattle or corrugated skin round the base of the beak of the English carrier-pigeon a monstrosity, but we do not thus speak of the globular fleshy excrescence at the base of the beak of the Carpophaga oceanica.

Some authors have drawn a wide distinction between artificial and natural breeds; although in extreme cases the distinction is plain, in many other cases it is arbitrary; the difference depending chiefly on the kind of selection which has been applied. Artificial breeds are those which have been intentionally improved by man; they frequently have an unnatural appearance, and are especially liable to lose their characters through reversion and continued variability. The so-called natural breeds, on the other hand, are those which are found in semi-civilised countries, and which formerly inhabited separate districts in nearly all the European kingdoms. They have been rarely acted on by man's intentional selection; more frequently by unconscious selection, and partly by natural selection, for animals kept in semi-civilised countries have to provide largely for their own wants. Such natural breeds will also have been directly acted on by the differences, though slight, in the surrounding conditions.

There is a much more important distinction between our several breeds, namely, in some having originated from a strongly-marked or semi-monstrous deviation of structure, which, however, may subsequently have been augmented by selection; whilst others have been formed in so slow and insensible a manner, that if we could see their early progenitors we should hardly be able to say when or how the breed first arose. From the history of the racehorse, greyhound, gamec.o.c.k, etc., and from their general appearance, we may feel nearly confident that they were formed by a slow process of improvement; and we know that this has been the case with the carrier-pigeon, as well as with some other pigeons. On the other hand, it is certain that the ancon and mauchamp breeds of sheep, and almost certain that the niata cattle, turnspit, and pug-dogs, jumper and frizzled fowls, short-faced tumbler pigeons, hook- billed ducks, etc., suddenly appeared in nearly the same state as we now see them. So it has been with many cultivated plants. The frequency of these cases is likely to lead to the false belief that natural species have often originated in the same abrupt manner. But we have no evidence of the appearance, or at least of the continued procreation, under nature, of abrupt modifications of structure; and various general reasons could be a.s.signed against such a belief.