26 SPECIES NOT 



we see individuals, though taken young from a 

 state of nature, perfectly tamed, long-lived, and 

 healthy, (of which I could give numerous in- 

 stances,) yet having their reproductive system so 

 seriously affected by unperceived causes, as to 

 fail in acting, we need not be surprised at 

 this system when it does act under confinement, 

 acting not quite regularly, and producing offspring 

 not perfectly like their parents, or variable."- 

 (Page 9.) 



Now this, which is Mr. Darwin's first cause of 

 variation, is a perfectly gratuitous assumption. 

 Ask any canary or pigeon-fancier if he finds any 

 difficulty in getting his birds to breed, and then 

 ask him if, being sure of his stock, is the produce 

 liable to great variation? All breeders are aware 

 that error in food, and breeding in and in, are 

 the great causes of variation; and both these 

 are unnatural, and therefore not likely to serve 

 the law of variation theory in a state of nature. 

 That there should be a difficulty in inducing 

 birds or beasts of prey to breed in confinement 

 is riot at all astonishing, when we reflect upon 

 the altered condition of life to which they are 

 exposed. But how can this in the slightest 

 degree be brought to bear upon any assumed 

 alteration in the reproductive organs in a state 

 of nature? In the forced and unnatural con- 

 dition to which they are subjected, it cannot for 

 a moment be a matter of surprise if the young, 

 when they do breed, are not always of normal 

 form. The garden "sports" do not bear upon 



