290 A COMMENTARY ON NOS. VII. AND VIII. OF " THE NATURALIST." 



tinge when from the latter country, although there is no other perceptible distinc- 

 tion ; the Magellanic specimens, however,' add to this diversity a decided differ- 

 ence of structure in the bill, wherefore these have been specified as 0. Magella- 

 nicus. In Strix flammea of North America and Europe, a difference of size is 

 superadded to a slight diversity of average colouring ; and it would be easy to 

 enumerate many more analogous examples. Had some of these, then, inhabited 

 the same district, it is not unlikely that they would have intermixed ; nor is it 

 improbable that their mutual offspring would have been freely prolific, so that 

 the race would have become effectually blended in time. It is true that many 

 naturalists, in the event of animals of a mixed race proving to be mutually fertile, 

 would hastily arrive at the conclusion that the parents were only varieties of the 

 same ; but the inference, I suspect, would be inconsistent with a presumed re- 

 sult, that a series of degrees of fertility would become apparent, corresponding to 

 those of physiological accordance, subsisting between the parents. Probandum 

 est, however, and it is not much to the credit of the present advanced state of 

 Zoology, that more experiments have not been instituted to decide this funda- 

 mental question. 



It has always appeared to me, that the extreme irregularity in the amount of 

 resemblance which obtains throughout the species of every group, the utter ab- 

 sence of any approach to uniformity, in this particular — many specie?, as above 

 shewn, approximating each other so closely, that it is not only difficult, but 

 seemingly even impossible (in numerous instances) to know them apart — is 

 utterly irreconcileable with, and therefore of itself subversive of, any doctrine 

 which contends for, a rigid system of arrangement, such as the theory espoused by 

 Mr. Swainson, wherein every separate species, as well as natural group, of each 

 degree of value, is held to be a component of a regular quinary circle ; a notion 

 which I conceive to require a precisely even amount of variation between every 

 distinct species and correspondent group, the palpable non-existence of which it 

 is useless to attempt to explain upon the easy principle of our partial acquaint- 

 ance with original forms, seeing that the progress of discovery has only tended to 

 render more irregular the several divisions, and has increased the number of 

 anomalies in full proportion to that of the new species which it has brought under 

 review. I shall revert to this subject presently. 



The Fitchet Weasel is much more common within a circuit of ten miles from 

 the metropolis than would be anticipated in so populous a neighbourhood. As 

 we advance further than this into the county of Surrey, it becomes much more 

 rare, and the Ermine Weasel considerably more abundant, a fact of which I am 

 positive, but which I am at present unable to explain, unless it be that it gives 

 the preference to furzy districts. It is called in some places the " furze-cat." I 

 have been credibly informed of an instance of a man seizing and pulling forth 



