74 Permanence and Evolution. 



passed as a hen of the ordinary white or pied 

 sort. Strange as this is, would it not seem yet 

 stranger, even to an evolutionist, that a sudden 

 modification should have occurred in five inde- 

 pendent instances, of so marked and typical a 

 character, both sexes being equally differentiated 

 from the parent stock and from one another. 

 Specially as Swinhoe found this breed in con- 

 finement in Hainan, P.Z.S., 1868, p. 30. Now 

 unless it was taken there from Europe, which 

 no one is likely to suppose, either the same 

 new form must have sprung up independently 

 in England and Eastern Asia, which would be 

 contrary to Darwinian ideas, and upset the 

 whole argument from geographical distribution, 

 or it was imported from Asia here, in which 

 case we know nothing of its origin. 



As to gold-fish and hive-bees, we know nothing 

 of the origin of their respective breeds, and 

 perhaps not much about the canary. We do 

 not even know if the different Canary and 



