IV 
VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION 
101 
And it is not at all surprising that it should be so, since all 
the species were in a state of nature when first domesticated 
or cultivated by man, and whatever variations occur must be 
due to purely natural causes. Moreover, on comparing the 
variations which occur in any one generation of domesticated 
animals with those which we know to occur in wild animals, 
we find no evidence of greater individual variation in the 
former than in the latter. The results of man’s selection are 
more striking to us because we have always considered the 
varieties of each domestic animal to be essentially identical, 
while those which avc observe in a wild state are held to be 
essentially diverse. The greyhound and the spaniel seem 
wonderful, as varieties of one animal produced by man’s 
selection ; while we think little of the diversities of the fox 
and the wolf, or the horse and the zebra, because we have 
been accustomed to look upon them as radically distinct 
animals, not as the results of nature’s selection of the 
varieties of a common ancestor. 
