196 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



i. e. that merely " indifferent" characters can never 

 do so, which would be absurd. Indeed, I have chosen 

 this case of the niata cattle expressly because their 

 strongly marked peculiarities are deleterious, and 

 therefore exclude Mr. Wallace's appeal to the argu- 

 ment from ignorance of a possible utility. But if even 

 these pronounced and deleterious peculiarities can 

 arise and be perpetuated with such constancy and 

 fidelity, much more is this likely to be the case with 

 less pronounced and merely neutral peculiarities. 



It may, however, be further objected that these 

 cattle are not improbably the result of artificial selec- 

 tion. It may be suggested that the semi-monstrous 

 breed originated in a single congenital variation, or 

 "sport," which was isolated and multiplied as a 

 curiosity by the early settlers. But even if such be the 

 explanation of this particular case, the fact would 

 not weaken our illustration. On the contrary, it 

 would strengthen our general argument, by showing an 

 additional means whereby indifferent specific charac- 

 ters can arise and become fixed in a state of nature. 

 As it seems to me extremely probable that the niata 

 cattle did originate in a congenital monstrosity, which 

 was then isolated and multiplied by human agency 

 (as is known to have been the case with the " ancon 

 sheep"), I will explain why this tends to strengthen 

 our general argument. 



It is certain that if these animals were ever subject 

 to artificial isolation for the purpose of establishing 

 their breed, the process must have ceased a long time 

 ago, seeing that there is no memory or tradition of 

 its occurrence. Now this proves that, however the 

 breed may have originated, it has been able to main- 



