THE EPIC OF EVOLUTION 515 



has simply picked out and fostered those forms that have suited his 

 purpose. If man, during the comparatively short time he has been 

 an actor on the evolutionary stage, has been able to bring about such 

 considerable changes in the population of the earth as is shown by 

 domesticated animals and plants, it appears reasonable to suppose 

 that " Mother Nature," in the enormous span of time which has been 

 available for her experiments, would certainly be able, without 

 human help, to have something to show in the way of evolution. 

 The origin of some domestic races, such as maize, is quite lost in 

 antiquity, but the wild forebears of most domestic forms are known. 

 It is quite well established that the numerous varieties of poultry 

 came from two original stocks, the jungle-fowl of India and the 

 Malayan azeel fowl. The many kinds of pigeons — fantails, barbs, 

 carriers, pouters, tumblers, and others — all came from an original 

 single stock, namely, the wild rock pigeon. Pigs, sheep, cattle, horses, 

 rabbits, guinea pigs, roses, forage plants, all trace their ancestry to 

 wild forms. From the plastic wolflike ancestor of the dog has been 

 evolved by the selective hand of man a most remarkable array of 

 descendants. Think of great danes and pomeranians ; long-nosed 

 collies and snuffling pekinese ; waddling bowlegged dachshunds and 

 dainty dancing black-and-tans ; woolly poodles and Mexican hairless 

 dogs ; spindle-legged greyhounds with sharp projecting features and 

 stocky bulldogs with faces pushed in, and all the other kinds of 

 dogs ! 



In many cases domesticated forms of living creatures could not 

 survive in nature, since man has picked out different qualities than 

 impartial nature would have selected. Someone has said, "the best 

 bred hog can only grunt, and snooze, and die. The prairie rooter of 

 a hundred years ago had more wit than all the Chester- Whites and 

 Poland-Chinas of today." 



Another fruitful line of human interference with evolutionary 

 processes is that of experimental breeding, which has come to flower 

 in the last forty years since some knowledge of the hereditary laws, 

 furnished by Mendelism, has made it possible. This is not the 

 place to explain what is involved in Mendelism (see XXII), except to 

 say that it has to do with the controlled combination of hereditary 

 lines which may result in evolutionary changes in organisms. If 

 what man can accomplish rather abruptly by controlled matings can 

 also take place in nature where promiscuous matings occur, then a 

 great side light is thrown upon evolution. 



