102 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



variation reappearing in ail individual, which Darwin 

 prefers, is that the character in question has been 

 lying latent, and at last, under unknown favourable 

 conditions, is developed. It is impossible for me to 

 follow him into this region of mist and clouds. I 

 feel more at home in the domain of natural law 

 and logical sequences. 



(/) In the paragraph which immediately precedes 

 that which has been so far the subject of our com- 

 ment, Darwin has written: "With pigeons, how- 

 ever, we have another case, namely, the occasional 

 appearance in all the breeds of slaty-blue birds with 

 two black bars on the wings, white loins, a bar at 

 the end of the tail, with the outer feathers externally 

 edged near their bases with white. As all these 

 marks are characteristic of the parent stock-pigeon, 

 I presume that no one will doubt that this is a case 

 of reversion and not of a new yet analogous variation 

 appearing in the several breeds." 



We have here the case of generic characters over- 

 coming and replacing thu individual variations that 

 have, by man's accumulation, become the character- 

 istics of the several breeds derived from a form still 

 extant, and from which their derivation has been of 

 very recent date. The tendency of the generic or 

 specific characters to reappear is always more or less 

 present in the breeds that have been artificially 

 modified from them. As in the offspring of a breed 

 the amount of individual inheritance from the parents 

 is always an indeterminate quantity, varying from 



