34 GERMINAL SELECTION. 



of this species. I shall choose an example which seems 

 to me especially clear and simple because only one 

 character has been substantially modified here. The 

 long-tailed variety of domestic cock, now bred in Japan 

 and Corea, owes its existence to skilful selection and 

 not at all to the circumstance that at some period 

 of the race's history a cock with tail-feathers six feet 

 in length suddenly and spasmodically appeared. At 

 the present day even, as Professor Ishikawa of Tokio 

 writes me, the breeders still make extraordinary efforts 

 to increase the length of the tail, and every inch gained 

 adds considerably to the value of the bird. Now 

 nothing has been done here whatever except always 

 to select for purposes of breeding the cocks with the 

 longest feathers; and in this way alone were these 

 feathers, after the lapse of many generations, pro- 

 longed to a length far exceeding every previous varia- 

 tion. 



I once asked a famous dove-fancier, Mr. W. B. 

 Tegetmeier of London, whether it was his opinion that 

 by artificial selection alone a character could be aug- 

 mented. He thought a long time and finally said : "It 

 is without our power to do anything if the variation 

 which we seek is not presented, but once that variation 

 is given, then I think the augmentation can be ef- 

 fected." And that in fact is the case. If cocks had 

 never existed whose tail-feathers were a little longer 

 than usual the Japanese breed could never have orig- 

 inated ; but as the facts are, always the cocks with the 

 longest feathers were chosen from each generation, 

 and these only were bred, and thus a hereditary aug- 

 mentation of the character in question was effected, 

 which would hardly have been deemed possible. 



Now what does this mean ? Simply that the hered- 



