II 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 35 



Joseph Banks, published in the " Philosophical 

 Transactions " for 1813. It appears that one Seth 

 Wright, the proprietor of a farm on the banks 

 of the Charles River, in Massachusetts, possessed 

 a flock of fifteen ewes and a ram of the ordinary 

 kind. In the year 1791, one of the ewes 

 presented her owner with a male lamb, differing, 

 for no assignable reason, from its parents by a 

 proportionally long body and short bandy legs, 

 whence it was unable to emulate its relatives in 

 those sportive leaps over the neighbours 1 fences, 

 in which they were in the habit of indulging, 

 much to the good farmer's vexation. 



The second case is that detailed by a no less 

 unexceptionable authority than Reaumur, in his 

 "Art de faire eclore les Poulets." A Maltese 

 couple, named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were 

 constructed upon the ordinary human model, had 

 born to them a son, Gratio, who possessed six per- 

 fectly movable fingers on each hand, and six toes, 

 not quite so well formed, on each foot. No cause 

 could be assigned for the appearance of this unusual 

 variety of the human species. 



Two circumstances are well worthy of remark in 

 both these cases. In each, the variety appears to 

 have arisen in full force, and, as it were, per saltum ; 

 a wide and definite difference appearing, at once, 

 between the Ancon ram and the ordinary sheep ; 

 between the six-fingered and six-toed Gratio Kelleia 

 and ordinary men. In neither case is it possible 



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