Fertile Hybrids 



bred inter se. This was effected by Mr Eyton, 

 who raised two hybrids from the same parents 

 but from different hatches ; and from these two 

 birds he raised no less than eight hybrids (grand- 

 children of the pure geese) from one nest. In 

 India, however, these cross-bred geese must 

 be far more fertile ; for I am assured by two 

 eminently capable judges, namely, Mr Blyth and 

 Captain Hutton, that whole flocks of these 

 crossed geese are kept in various parts of the 

 country ; and as they are kept for profit, where 

 neither pure parent species exists, they must 

 certainly be highly fertile. 1 ... So again there 

 is reason to believe that our European and the 

 humped Indian cattle are quite fertile together ; 

 and from facts communicated to me by Mr 

 Blyth, I think they must be considered as 

 distinct species." 



Darwin does not seem to have been very 

 satisfied with the evidence he had collected, for 

 he said : " Finally, looking to all the ascertained 

 facts on the intercrossing of plants and animals, 

 it may be concluded that some degree of sterility, 



1 After years of observation of these Indian geese, Finn is 

 convinced they are now, at all events, pure Chinese ; it is possible 

 that they really were hybrids in Blyth's time, but that fresh im- 

 portations of geese from China, such as still occur, may have 

 ultimately swamped the blood of the common goose. The fertility 

 of the hybrid geese was, however, known to such early writers as 

 Pallas and Linnaeus. Darwin himself, at a later date, bred 

 five young from a pair of such hybrids (Nature, Jan. I, 1880, 

 p. 207). 



"5 



