Permanence and Evolution, 83 



wild stocks. The same is true as to many 

 other local races, as for instance the Java 

 tiger, which differs from the Indian only in 

 having its belly somwhat suffused with yellow, 

 or different European varieties of fox, between 

 which the only recognisable distinction lies in 

 the colour of the tip of the tail. Supposing 

 also the several closely allied wild races of 

 mocking thrush, described by Darwin as existing 

 in the Galapagos, had been domesticated, and 

 suppose also that they had become extinct in a 

 wild state, which with regard to races confined 

 each to one small island, would be surely not 

 surprising, would it not be considered quite 

 absurd to suppose that these forms originated 

 each from a separate wild stock ? Supposing 

 these only were known in domestication, how 

 puerile it would have seemed, not only to 

 evolutionists, but also to most naturalists who 

 are not evolutionists, to suppose that they 

 sprang from corresponding wild forms. 



