Sermons, (Sssajrs, anfr |Ubiefos. |_ XIL 



ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase 

 of their favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to 

 discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted 

 legs of Seth Wright's ram or the hexadactyle members 

 of Gratio Kelleia. 



Varieties then arise we know not why ; and it is more 

 than probable that the majority of varieties have arisen 

 in this " spontaneous" manner, though we are, of course, 

 far from denying that they may be traced, in some cases, 

 to distinct external influences ; which are assuredly com- 

 petent to alter the character of the tegumentary cover- 

 ing, to change colour, to increase or diminish the size of 

 muscles, to modify constitution, and, among plants, to 

 give rise to the metamorphosis of stamens into petals, 

 and so forth. But however they may have arisen, what 

 especially interests us at present is, to remark that, once 

 in existence, varieties obey the fundamental law of re- 

 production that like tends to produce like, and their 

 offspring exemplify it by tending to exhibit the same 

 deviation from the parental stock as themselves. Indeed, 

 there seems to be, in many instances, a pre-potent in- 

 fluence about a newly-arisen variety which gives it 

 what one may call an unfair advantage over the normal 

 descendants from the same stock. This is strikingly 

 exemplified by the case of Gratio Kelleia, who married 

 a woman with the ordinary pentadactyle extremities, 

 and had by her four children, Salvator, George, Andr, 

 and Marie. Of these children Salvator, the eldest boy, 

 had six fingers and six toes, like his father ; the second 

 and third, also boys, had five fingers and five toes, like 

 their mother, though the hands and feet of George 

 were slightly deformed ; the last, a girl, had five fingers 

 and five toes, but the thumbs were slightly deformed. 

 The variety thus reproduced itself purely in the eldest, 

 while the normal type reproduced itself purely in the 



