( evil ) 



tive anatomist had occasion to speak or write on the broader 

 aspects of biological inquiry.* 



Darwin also considered that there was something in the 

 very conditions of domestication which tended to promote 

 fertility between races and even between distinct species. 

 Thus he followed Pallas in believing that the domestic dog 

 has been derived from more than one wild species, although he 

 did not trace exi-sting differences to this cause but to artificial 

 selection.t However, as regards the origin of the dog, "the 

 evidence is, and must be, very doubtful," as he wrote to Lyell, 

 August 11, [I860]. The fact which Darwin "considered the 

 most remarkable as yet recorded with respect to the fertility of 

 hybrids," was the fertility of the offspring of the Common and 

 Chinese Goose, originally described by Eyton,and confirmed by 

 Goodacre and by Darwin himself. " The two species of goose 

 now shown to be fertile inter se are so distinct that they have 

 been placed by some authorities in distinct genera or sub- 

 genera." I 



Another interesting and exce'edingly difficult experiment in 

 hybridisation has been carried through by the Rev. P. St. M. 

 Podmore, F.Z.S., who in Sept. 1899, after numerous failures, 

 succeeded in rearing a healthy male hybrid between the 

 King Dove (Columba jm^umbus) and the domestic pigeon. 

 On May 27, 1903, this male was mated with a Blue Homer 

 hen, whicli produced healthy offspring. § 



* For several instances see Poulton's " Cliarles Darwin and the Theory 

 of Natural Selection," Lond. 1896, pp. 124-141. 



t "Though I believe that our domestic dojjs have descended from 

 several wild forms, and though I must think that the sterility, which 

 they would probably have evinced, if crossed before being domesticated, 

 has been eliminated, yet I go but a very little way with Pallas & Co. in 

 their belief in the importance of the crossing and blending of the 

 aboriginal stocks. 



"Although the hound, greyliound, and bull-dog may possibly have 

 descended from three distinct stocks, I am convinced that their present 

 great amount of difference is mainly due to the sinie causes [artificial 

 selection] which have made the breeds of pigeons so different from each 

 other, though these breels of pigeons have all descended from one wild 

 stock ; so that the Pallasian doctrine I look at as but of quite secondary 

 importance." 



"More Letters," vol. i, pp. 127, 128, Letter 80, to Lyell, Oct. 31, 

 [1859]. 



X " Life and Letters," vol. iii, p. 240. 



§ "The Zoologist," Nov. 1903, p. 401. 



