TRANSMUTABLE. 19 



its mode of living, it will breed seven or eight 

 times a year, or oftener. I by no means admit 

 that you could convert it by this means into a 

 tumbler or a carrier; still less do I hold that 

 you could by any means change it into an elephant 

 or a whale, but I mention the fact here to draw 

 attention to the immense difference which there 

 is between the varieties produced by domestication, 

 and those which occur in a state of nature. 

 Grow a plant in a strong, rich, highly-manured 

 soil, and note how different it will be from that 

 grown in a poor one, how much more inclined 

 to sport into varieties. The fact is too obvious 

 and well-known to require illustration. 



How variable also is the plumage of birds kept 

 in confinement. Look at our domestic ducks, or 

 our barn-door fowls, and compare them again 

 with the wild duck or the pheasant. This, I 

 contend, is an abnormal effect produced by 

 altered treatment. If it were the result of a 

 natural law, it ought to obtain equally with 

 animals or plants in a state of nature, and this 

 I entirely deny. The naturalist gets a great 

 number of what he terms closely -allied species, 

 and immediately the fact is seized hold of to 

 prove a law of variation. But did it never 

 occur to Mr. Darwin that the rules which na- 

 turalists often follow in determining species are 

 very arbitrary. Are not forms frequently asso- 

 ciated together or separated from each other by 

 characters which have no real importance? 



Nothing, in fact, can be more absurd than 



