84 Permanence and Evolution. 



These and similar facts ought to make 

 us very careful about assuming supposed 

 modifications produced by domestication with- 

 out positive evidence. With regard to the 

 breeds of so-called modern origin, we must 

 distinguish between those cases where, as 

 with cattle and horses, the improvement was 

 effected through known individual animals, and 

 where, as in sheep, no such celebrated ancestors 

 are on record. The language used by the 

 breeders themselves has rather tended, un- 

 intentionally, to confuse the matter. We read, 

 for instance, Darwin, "Animals and Plants," 

 vol. ii. p. 182, of Bakewell having changed the 

 aspect of the New Leicester sheep, when what is 

 meant is that, by encouraging some family 

 strains in preference to others, he altered the 

 general aspect of the sheep in the country. 

 This arises from breeders erecting the abstrac- 

 tion, a breed, into a kind of fetish, just as syste- 

 matic naturalists make a fetish of species, instead 



