996 OF THE BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



remarkable than the want of constancy among the latter ; and whilst variety 

 of color soon gives place to uniformity, when domesticated races return in 

 any considerable degree towards their primitive state, 1 it very speedily de- 

 velops itself in races which are undergoing the converse process. 2 



841. Now it is by taking advantage of those "spontaneous" departures 

 from the ordinary type, which present features of value to the breeders of 

 domesticated animals, that new races are developed from time to time among 

 these ; any strongly marked peculiarity which thus appears in only a single 

 individual, being usually transmitted to some of its offspring, and being 

 almost certainly perpetuated when both parents are distinguished by it, as 

 happens when the products of the first procreation become capable of breed- 

 ing with each other. 3 Now there can be no hesitation in admitting, that the 

 tendency to the so-called "spontaneous" variation prevails in the Human 

 race to a greater degree than in any other ; since we find most remarkable 

 diversities in features, complexion, hair, and general conformation, among 

 the offspring of the same parentage ; whilst more special modifications of 

 the ordinary type, such as the possession of six fingers on each hand and of 

 six toes on each foot are of no uufrequent occurrence. Under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, these modifications tend to disappear as often as they occur ; the 

 free intermixture of those members of the race which possess them, with 

 those which depart less from the ordinary type, tending to merge them in 

 the general average. But there can be no reasonable doubt that if the same 

 kind of segregation were practiced among Mankind, which is adopted by the 

 breeders of animals for the purpose of perpetuating a particular variety, 

 if, for example, the members of a six-fingered family were to intermarry 

 exclusively with one another, any such variety would be permanently es- 

 tablished as a new race. Now if it be borne in mind that the influence of 

 a scanty population, in the early ages of the Human race, by isolating dif- 

 ferent families from each other, and causing intermarriages among even the 

 nearest relatives, would have been precisely the same with that which is 

 now exercised by the breeders of animals, we see one reason why the varie- 

 ties which then arose should have a much greater tendency to self-perpetua- 

 tion than those which now occasionally present themselves. And when, too, 

 it is borne in mind, that the change in external conditions induced by migra- 

 tion would thus operate not only upon the parents but upon the offspring, 

 and would have a continual influence in so modifying the constitution of 

 the latter that the peculiarities thus acquired by them would be transmitted 

 in yet greater intensity to their progeny, there is no real difficulty in account- 



1 This has been especially noticed in the dogs, horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs in- 

 troduced by the Spaniards into South America. 



2 Thus Mr. T. Bell informs us (British Quadrupeds, 2d edit., p. 203), that an Aus- 

 tralian bitch, or dingo, in the Zoological Gardens, had a litter of puppies, the father 

 of which was also of that breed ; both parents had been taken in the wild state, both 

 were of the uniform reddish-brown color which belongs to the race, and the mother 

 had never bred before ; but the young, generated in confinement and in a half-do- 

 mesticated state, were all more or less spotted. 



3 See the history of the introduction of the ancon breed of sheep, characterized by 

 a peculiar conformation of its limbs, in Massachusetts, given by Colonel Ilutchinson 

 in the Phil. Trans, for 1813. A similar account has been more lately given b}' Prof. 

 Owen (in a Lecture delivered before the Society of Arts, Dec. 10th, 1851), respecting 

 the recent introduction of a new breed of merino sheep, distinguished for the long, 

 smooth, straight, and silky character of the wool, and now known as the Maucha>/> 

 breed. In both instances, the breed originated in the spontaneous appearance of a 

 male lamb possessing the peculiarities in question ; from its offspring such a selection 

 was made by the breeder, as enabled him to bring together males and females, both 

 of which were distinguished by them; and in their progeny, the peculiarities uni- 

 formly appeared. 



