VULGAR DICTA. 43 



weight, colours in the broadest sense of the word, not tints or 

 shades of hue, quality of flesh, and shape, are by no means to 

 be set down as distinct and permanent species ; for it will be 

 found that a transposition of these from one place to another, 

 and even the regular course of reproduction, will bring them 

 back to the original or normal type. 



What strikes us, moreover, at first sight, as in no small 

 degree singular, is the fact, that different varieties of one 

 species will very frequently differ more widely from one another, 

 and from the original type, so far as those externals which 

 strike the mere superficial observer, than entirely distinct and 

 immutable species. 



This it is which so often leads common and \Tilgar-minded 

 persons, who are in the habit of boasting that they believe their 

 own eyes only, and resorting to other absurdities of that kind, 

 and who will not take the trouble of connecting causes and 

 efi'ects, or considering logical consequences, to disregard, and 

 even to hold in contempt, the teachings of scientific men as 

 mere theoretical dreamers, useless coiners of hard terms, and 

 founders of distinctions, founded upon no difierence. 



Such, I am sorry to say, is too often the habit of sportsmen ; 

 who Avill frequently give ear to the superstitious and absurd 

 garrulity of some rustic ignoramus, who pronounces his abso- 

 lute yea or nay upon some fact about which lie is utterly igno- 

 rant, and who has no earthly qualification for judging on the 

 qualities of the bird, beast, or fish in question, than that of 

 having seen it so often that he ought to know something about 

 it, which he does not ; while they turn away contemptuously, or 

 listen coldly to the teachings of the man, whose arguments are 



