110 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



Where in nature do we find our cabbages, lettuces, etc., in the same 

 state as in our kitchen gardens ? and is not the case the same with 

 regard to many animals which have been altered or greatly modified 

 by domestication ? 



How many different races of our domestic fowls and pigeons have 

 we obtained by rearing them in various environments and different 

 countries ; birds which we should now vainly seek in nature ? 



Those which have changed the least, doubtless because their 

 domestication is of shorter standing and because they do not live in a 

 foreign climate, none the less display great differences in some of their 

 parts, as a result of the habits which we have made them contract. 

 Thus our domestic ducks and geese are of the same type as wild 

 ducks and geese ; but ours have lost the power of rising into high 

 regions of the air and flying across large tracts of country ; more- 

 over, a real change has come about in the state of their parts, as com- 

 pared with those of the animals of the race from which they come. 



Who does not know that if we rear some bird of our own climate 

 in a cage and it lives there for five or six years, and if we then return 

 it to nature by setting it at liberty, it is no longer able to fly hke its 

 fellows, which have always been free ? The slight change of environ- 

 ment for this individual has indeed only diminished its power of flight, 

 and doubtless has worked no change in its structure ; but if a long 

 succession of generations of individuals of the same race had been 

 kept in captivity for a considerable period, there is no doubt that even 

 the structure of these individuals would gradually have undergone 

 notable changes. Still more, if instead of a mere continuous captivity, 

 this environmental factor had been further accompanied by a change 

 to a very different climate ; and if these individuals had by degrees 

 been habituated to other kinds of food and other activities for seizing 

 it, these factors when combined together and become permanent 

 would have unquestionably given rise imperceptibly to a new race 

 with quite special characters. 



Where in natural conditions do we find that multitude of races of 

 dogs which now actually exist, owing to the domestication to which 

 we have reduced them ? Where do we find those bull-dogs, grey- 

 hounds, water-spaniels, spaniels, lap-dogs, etc., etc. ; races which 

 show wider differences than those which we call specific when they 

 occur among animals of one genus living in natural freedom ? 



No doubt a single, original race, closely resembUng the wolf, if 

 indeed it was not actually the wolf, was at some period reduced by 

 man to domestication. That race, of which all the individuals were 

 then ahke, was gradually scattered with man into different countries 

 and climates ; and after they had been subjected for some time to 



