Sl'Ki IKS AMI HACKS. 5S1 



hybrids prove true to seed, to use a gardener's expression, and there is n<i truth in 

 the assertion thai they have an innate tendency to revert to one of the parent- 

 forms. 



At one time the attempt was made to distinguish two sorts of hybrids — those 

 arising between species, which were regarded as sterile, and those arising Lot ween 

 which wore regarded as fertile. By "races" are understood forms which, whilst 

 not differentiated by characters of sufficient importance to rank as species, are yet 

 reproduced by seed and transmit their characters to their offspring. They seem to 

 .stand midway between what are called varieties and sub-species. Forms arising by 

 the crossing of species were termed hybrids, those arising by the crossing of races 

 blendlings". But in this matter Botanists argued in a hopeless circle. Firstly, it 

 was said that if races were crossed the intermediate forms were fertile; whilst those 

 springing from species were sterile; and, secondly, the distinction between races and 

 species was defined as consisting in the fact of the fertility of the intermediate 

 forms produced by crossing races, as compared with the infertility of those derived 

 from crosses between species. A distinction founded on such reasoning as this is, of 

 course, destitute of any value or meaning. What, then, is the difference between 

 races and species? There are certain forms which have a similar physiognomy, an 

 agreement in certain striking particulars. They are bound together by these common 

 characteristics into a single group, and it must be supposed that they are nearly 

 allied in respect of their origin also. But no more than affinity can be predicated 

 by characters which, though perhaps less striking than the others, are yet trans- 

 mitted unmodified to descendants and prove themselves to be constant attributes. 

 It has been sought to apply the term "races" to nearly akin forms of the kind. But 

 the degree of variation has nothing to do with the conception of a species; the 

 essential point is that the characters wherein the variation is manifested are trans- 

 mitted unchanged to the descendants, and this happens as a fact in all the cases to 

 which the name of race has been affixed. The use of the term would obviously 

 imply quite a different connotation of the name of species from that which Linnaeus, 

 with logical exactitude, attached to it. According to him a species was not an 

 assemblage of individuals of the same form, but an assemblage of individuals of 

 different forms, constituting a group of units and not itself the unit of the system. 

 If, like the French system, we were to distinguish the groups of nearly allied 

 species as "petites especes" from those exhibiting more marked differences and less 

 nearly akin to one another, which would be known as "grandes especes ", that 

 would involve quite sufficient recognition of the difference which exists in various 

 degrees between members of the two categories in question; but the introduction of 

 the word "race" side by side with the word "species" suggests the idea of some line 

 of demarcation between the two such as does not in reality exist. Again, if there is 

 no definite boundary between race and species the separation of blendlings from 

 hybrids also fails, and with it the proposition that only those hybrids are fertile 

 which are the offspring of races. 



In respect of fertility, then, there is no difference between hybrids and species. 



