I4S THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



genuine species. Although on the whole it is more like its 

 mother (rabbit), still in the formation of the ears and of the 

 hind-legs, it possesses distinct qualities of its father (hare). 

 Its flesh has an excellent taste, rather resembling that of a 

 hare, though the colour is more like that of a rabbit. But 

 the hare (Lepus timidus) and the rabbit (Lepus cuniculus) 

 are two species of the genus Lepus, so different that no 

 systematic zoologist will recognize them as varieties of one 

 species. Both species, moreover, live in such different ways, 

 and in their wild state entertain so great an aversion 

 towards one another, that they do not pair so long as they 

 are left free. If, however, the newly-born young ones of 

 both species are brought up together, this aversion is not 

 developed; they pair with one another and produce the 

 Lepus Darwinii. 



Another remarkable instance of the crossing of different 

 species (where the two species belong even to different 

 genera !) is furnished by the fruitful hybrids of sheep and 

 goats which have for a long time been bred in Chili for in- 

 dustrial purposes. On what unessential circumstances in 

 the sexual mingling the fertility of the different species 

 depend, is shown by the fact that he-goats and sheep in 

 their mingling produce fruitful hybrids, while the ram and 

 she-goat pair very rarely, and then without result. The 

 phenomena of hybridism to which undue importance has 

 been erroneously attributed are thus utterly unmeaning, so 

 far as the idea of species is concerned. The breeding of 

 hybrids does not enable us, any more than other phenomena, 

 thoroughly to distinguish cultivated races from wild species ; 

 and this circumstance is of the greatest importance in the 

 Theory of Selection, 



