114 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



ancestral cross. But he candidly admits, " I have heard of 

 no other such case in the animal or vegetable kingdom." 

 On the hypothesis of its being only a variety, he observes, 

 " The case is the most remarkable ever recorded of the 

 abrupt appearance of a new form, which so closely re- 

 sembles a true species that it has deceived one of the 

 most experienced of living ornithologists." 



As to plants, M. C. Naudin 1 has given the following 

 instances of the sudden origination of apparently perma- 

 nent forms : " The first case mentioned is that of a poppy, 

 which took on a remarkable variation in its fruit a crown 

 of secondary capsules being added to the normal central 

 capsule. A field of such poppies was grown, and M. Gop- 

 pert, with seed from this field, obtained still this monstrous 

 form in great quantity. Deformities of ferns are some- 

 times sought after by fern-growers. They are now always 

 obtained by taking spores from the abnormal parts of the 

 monstrous fern ; from which spores ferns presenting the 

 same peculiarities invariably grow The most re- 

 markable case is that observed by Dr. Godron, of Nancy. 

 In 1861 that botanist observed, amongst a sowing of 

 Datura tatula, the fruits of which are very spinous, a 

 single individual of which the capsule was perfectly 

 smooth. The seeds taken from this plant all furnished 

 plants having the character of this individual. The fifth 

 and sixth generations are now growing without exhibit- 

 ing the least tendency to revert to the spinous form. 

 More remarkable still, when crossed with the normal 

 Datura tatula, hybrids were produced, which, in the 



1 Extracted by J. J. Murphy, vol. i. p. 197, from the Quarterly Journal 

 of Science, of October 1867, p. 527. 



