18591863] VARIATION 171 



specifically distinct, or forming well-marked races. We must Letter 113 

 in such cases incline to the belief that a multitude of species 

 were once identically the same in all the three countries when 

 under a warmer climate and more in connection ; and have 

 varied in all the three countries. I am inclined to believe 

 that almost every species (as we see with nearly all our 

 domestic productions) varies sufficiently for Natural Selection 

 to pick out and accumulate new specific differences, under 

 new organic and inorganic conditions of life, whenever a place 

 is open in the polity of nature. But looking to a long lapse 

 of time and to the whole world, or to large parts of the 

 world, I believe only one or a few species of each large genus 

 ultimately becomes victorious, and leaves modified descend- 

 ants. To give an imaginary instance : the jay has become 

 modified in the three countries into (I believe) three or four 

 species ; but the jay genus is not, apparently, so dominant a 

 group as the crows ; and in the long run probably all the 

 jays will be exterminated and be replaced perhaps by some 

 modified crows. 



I merely give this illustration to show what seems to me 

 probable. 



But oh ! what work there is before we shall understand 

 the genealogy of organic beings ! 



With respect to the Apteryx^ I know not enough of 

 anatomy ; but ask Dr. F. whether the clavicle, etc., do not 

 give attachment to some of the muscles of respiration, If my 

 views are at all correct, the wing of the Apteryx^ cannot be 

 (p. 452 of the Origin} a nascent organ, as these wings are 

 useless. I dare not trust to memory, but I know I found the 

 whole sternum always reduced in size in all the fancy and 

 confined pigeons relatively to the same bones in the wild Rock- 

 pigeon : the keel was generally still further reduced relatively 

 to the reduced length of the sternum ; but in some breeds it 

 was in a most anomalous manner more prominent. I have 

 got a lot of facts on the reduction of the organs of flight in 

 the pigeon, which took me weeks to work out, and which 

 Huxley thought curious. 



I am utterly ashamed, and groan over my handwriting. 

 It was " Natural Preservation." Natural persecution is what 



1 Origin of Species , Ed. vi., p. 140. 



