68 LECTURES 



When in the West, a number of years ago, and often 

 in the camps of our Sioux Indians, I found it in many 

 instances difficult to distinguish their dogs from the wild 

 prairie wolf or coyote from which undoubtedly all were 

 derived originally. In some cases, however, the better 

 differentiated species were quite distinct and very dif- 

 ferent appearing animals. The parent stock of all our 

 remarkable breeds of chickens is beyond all doubt the 

 ordinary wild chicken of India, the Gallus bankiva of 

 ornithologists; and, personally, 1 satisfied myself of this 

 fact, not long ago, by a most careful comparison of the 

 entire structure of alcoholic specimens of the India 

 species sent me from India for the very purpose, with 

 numerous species of our common fowls, comparing the 

 skeletons and structure for structure throughout. Among 

 the domesticated species the game fowls come nearest the 

 original wild parent stock, and yet, in appearance, what 

 a wide gap exists between them, for instance, and the 

 extraordinary Polish cocks. In comparing our common 

 tame turkey, anatomically, with a fine series of the 

 wild turkeys which I had collected for the purpose, I not 

 only satisfied myself that our domesticated form was 

 derived from the wild one, but I succeeded in obtaining 

 a series of skeletons which showed all the striking dif- 

 ferences in beautiful serial arrangement, standing as they 

 did between the two extremes. 



I might go on citing such cases by the hour, and multi- 

 ply the examples in an endless variety, but enough has 

 been presented to show what biology is bringing out 

 along the lines given. The literature in such fields is 

 now simply enormous, and the study of the entire ques- 

 tion of hybrids, artificial selection, interbreeding, 

 sterility, and the production of new species and sub- 

 species, is not only fraught with great value but it has 

 had the effect of being of the most incalculable benefit to 

 the breeder of domestic stock of all kinds, as well as 

 throwing a powerful light upon the entire question of the 

 doctrine of descent and the origin of species as we find 

 them in Nature. Why, when Darwin wrote his two 

 volumes, on "Animals and Plants under Domestication," 

 they were used more by the scientific agriculturists and 

 breeders the world over, for the practical and useful in- 

 formation they contained, than they were by the op- 

 ponents of the theory of descent to study the arguments 

 set forth in them, in their endeavors to defeat the same 

 and this is saying a great deal. 



There are several other very beautiful laws presented 



