76 Permanence and Evolution. 



nothing in the first to suggest transmutation, 

 'and the instances of the second kind suggest 

 original distinctness and subsequent confluence 

 more strongly than anything else. 



Next we have different sub-types of the same 

 form, each predominant in a certain district, but 

 not exclusively or even nearly so, as the differ- 

 ent-coloured forms of the North American wolf. 

 Then instances where the whole race is variable, 

 like the common ruff, where it is difficult to find 

 two males coloured exactly alike, in this re- 

 sembling common mongrel barn-door fowls. 

 Last of all we have instances in which abnormal 

 individuals, chiefly in colour, are found in such 

 small numbers that it seems they must be often 

 born from parents both of the normal form, 

 though anything positive is seldom known about 

 the matter, as, for instance, the black form of 

 fox, both in Europe and North America. Now 

 these latter instances seem to me equally con- 

 sistent with the explanation of original diversity 



