CHAP. XI.] AN EPISODE. 339 



&quot; Mr. Wright challenges the production of a sudden adap 

 tive modification of a race, wild or domesticated, 

 not referable by known physiological laws to the avemodiflca- 

 past history of the race on the theory of evolution. 

 In this statement I must in the first place object to the 

 introduction of the words on the theory of evolution, as that 

 theory, far from being opposed, is, on the contrary, adopted 

 and contended for by me, and I do not understand how Mr. 

 Wright can have inserted them unless by inadvertence. 

 Instances, however, of modifications, the production of which 

 he desiderates, can readily be supplied. Thus the Cashmere 

 sheep, when transferred to Europe, lost their long wool in a 

 few generations, and this could not possibly have been due 

 to Natural Selection. Again, the marine animals now living 

 in Swedish lakes have become remarkably transformed, and 

 the instance noticed by Mr. Darwin as to the Mediterranean 

 oyster, though not evidently adaptive, is probably so, and if 

 so would be in point. There was however no need to bring 

 such cases forward, for surely it was fair to take Mr. Darwin s 

 own estimate of what facts he would consider fatal, and such 

 facts I claim to have brought forward, in sufficient number, 

 in my book. I can only express my profound regret that I 

 should be so unfortunate as to seem to Mr. Chauncey Wright 

 to have made an unfathomable translation of the theory of 

 Natural Selection. Mr. Darwin nowhere himself says, with 

 Mr. Wright, that the slightness of the variations he speaks 

 of * is only relative to the differences between the characters 

 of the species ; and I cannot but think Mr. Wright himself 

 misconceives Mr. Darwin s meaning, for I believe the latter 

 gentleman would not speak of the sudden development of a 

 large proboscis, like that of Semnopitheeus nasalis, as a 

 slight variation. 



&quot;An admission which Mr. Darwin makes, and which I 

 considered and consider to be important, is souo-ht 



1 Improper in- 



to be explained away by Mr. Chauncey Wright terpretattons. 

 in a mode I cannot think permissible. He tells us that 

 when Mr. Darwin says that the goose * seems to have a sin- 



z 2 



