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in contact with a different looking ordinal in another part of the 

 world, and breeding, it may lead persons to suppose they have 

 got a hybrid which is capable of reproducing, when in reality the 

 produce is not a hybrid at all. Nature appears to have taken 

 especial care to prevent the mixture of species, and wisely : if it 

 were not so, instead of having the beautifully-defined forms we 

 have, we would have the world full of I may say monsters. 

 How species are or were created is a matter quite beyond man's 

 understanding ; we cannot tell whether species are being created 

 at the present time, though we have such abundant proof of their 

 dying out, and having died out. There does not appear to me 

 to be any thing more to be wondered at in the creation of a spe- 

 cies at the present time (should the Creator of all things deem it 

 right) than there was at the beginning of the world, but by what 

 means man will probably never know. I cannot believe man 

 can make a species, which he would be doing if he could obtain 

 a hybrid between two distinct species, and continue the breed of 

 such hybrids constant in shape and colour. If nature approved 

 of hybrids they would be much more frequently met with in a 

 wild state. Undoubtedly they do occur in that state, but much 

 more frequently amongst those animals which are either domes- 

 ticated or semi-domesticated, and in cases where the parents are 

 deprived of the opportunity of associating with others of their 

 own species. When hybrids do occur in a wild state, does na- 

 ture not prevent their doing any mischief and interfering further 

 with her regular laws ? As a general rule, would it not be well 

 to regard those as species the parents being alike, the offspring 

 similar, and whose young reproduce? Almost all rules have 

 exceptions, but nature has generally given certain colours to a 

 species in its wild state at the same season of the year, and at 

 the same period of the age. I see in The Field notice of what 

 are called hybrids between the Japanese Pheasant and the Com- 

 mon Pheasant. A question arises Arc these separate species ? 

 Should they be distinct species, and those bred really be hybrids, 

 it is more than likely they will prove barren. Is it not probable 

 that those Pheasants, and also the King-neck and the Bohemian, 

 are mere varieties, caused by food or dimatr. or other cause? in 



