members of this group, I will venture to say that the case really 

 stands on all fours with that of the Turnus group, and that these 

 members are co-ordinate, one as near the parent stock, the pro- 

 genitor of the whole of them, as another. But, suppose it should 

 really be a case of derivation, a thing which I have seen no evi- 

 dence of, and which could best be ascertained by breeding the 

 several forms from the ^gg; and that ]\TacJiaon, in course of ages, 

 has cast off Hippocrates, and Hippocrates Zolicaon, and Zolicaon 

 Oregoiiia. The question for us is, not what they were, nor where 

 they came from, but what they are to-day. Are these derived 

 forms prominent ; are they permanent ; do they show any signs 

 of reversion? There is not the least evidence that they are not 

 permanent forms, breeding true to type. Any apparent 

 intergrades may be accounted for on the ground that they 

 are aberrations or hybrids. Every group comprehended 

 under a genus name has sprung from a common parent 

 form ; every sub-group, in same way, one degree further on ; and 

 when a derived form has attained the features mentioned, prom- 

 inence and permanence, it is as much entitled to rank as a species 

 as was the form from which it sprung. To claim that these inde- 

 pendent varieties can never cast loose from the parent, and must 

 always fly under its wing, is as if all animals bred were to be called 

 varieties of ascidians. 



Of course, this does not suit the views of the ancient school, 

 who looked upon a species as the result of a creative act, and 

 held it to be teres atqiie rotundiis at the outset, neither to be en- 

 larged nor diminished. And so every species was to be herded in 

 a separate corral, the parents and all their progeny to be carefully 

 kept together. If one of the latter, no matter whether of the 

 half-blood or the sixteenth, jumped the fence, there was as great 

 a hue and cry as used to be made for a runaway slave. 1863 

 settled the status of this last individual, and 1861 that of the 

 other. The corral is open henceforth, and any capable variety 

 may lawfully aspire to be a species. " The race is to the strong," 

 literally. Let us hear Prof. Owen : " I apprehend that few natur- 

 alists now-a-days, in describing and proposing a name for what 

 they call a new species, use that term to signify what was meant 

 by it 20 or 30 years ago. . . . The proposer of the new 

 species now intends to state no more than he actually knows ; as, 

 for example, that the differences on which he founds his specific 

 character are constant in individuals of both sexes, so far as obser- 

 vation has reached," etc. That is all we can know of such things 

 as dried butterflies, and to assume that a new form, because it 

 has a certain resemblance to some other named one, must neces- 

 sarily be a variety of that one, is unwarranted. If the amount of 

 difference is important, the new form has its rights as a species, 

 at least till the contrary is actually proved ; and that can only be 

 done by breeding from the egg. 



