ON BIOLOGY. 67 



existence of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect and use- 

 less condition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a 

 strange difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doc- 

 trine of creation, might even have been anticipated in ac- 

 cordance with the views here explained." (Origin of 

 Species, p. 402.) 



Another magnificent array of interesting and most im- 

 portant facts have been brought to light in the course of 

 the innumerable researches that have led to the discovery 

 that all our domesticated animals, as pigeons, the various 

 tame fowls, cattle, dogs, horses and cats have all been de- 

 rived from wild types, each within the group to which it 

 severally belongs. Darwin proved, after years of patient 

 and most scientifically conducted experiments upon the 

 very richest kind of material obtainable in all the world, 

 that all the vast list of varieties of domesticated pigeons 

 were derived from a single wild species or from the 

 common blue rock-pigeon, Columba lima, the primary 

 stock. In a similar manner have all the remarkable 

 forms of domesticated rabbits been traced back to the 

 common wild rabbit, which has proved to be the original 

 primary species from which they were all undoubtedly 

 derived. Many of the domesticated species of rabbits are 

 now so utterly different, both in internal structure and 

 external form, that they are more widely separated, 

 morphologically, from the common wild type than the 

 latter is from any other wild species in any part of the 

 world. 



Illustrating this point in another way, a distinguished 

 German naturalist says: "In the year 1419, a few rabbits, 

 born on board ship of a tame Spanish rabbit, were put on 

 the island of Porto Santo, near Madeira. These little 

 animals, there being no beasts of prey, in a short time 

 increased so enormously that they became a pest to the 

 country, and even compelled a colony to remove from 

 the island. They still inhabit the island in great num- 

 bers; but in .the course of four hundred and fifty years 

 they have developed into a quite peculiar variety or, if 

 you will have it, into a "good species" which is dis- 

 tinguished by a peculiar color, a rat-like shape, small 

 size, nocturnal life, and extraordinary wildness." 

 (Haeckel.) It is most important to note now, however, 

 that this new species (L. huxleyi) will not cross with speci- 

 mens of the original European domesticated stock, and 

 .n one or two instances where they have they are infertile, 

 thus proving that they are thoroughly differentiated as a 

 species. 



