I.] SPORTS. 33 



species as there are unlike conditions in physical and 

 environmental nature, and in proportion as the condi- 

 tions are unlike and local are the species well defined. 

 But to Nature, perfect adaptation is the end; she knows 

 nothing, per se, as species or as fixed types. Species 

 were created by John Ray, not by the Lord; they were 

 named by Linnseus, not by Adam. 



I must now hasten to anticipate an objection to my 

 phrase which may arise in your minds. I have said 

 that when characters are unlike existing characters, they 

 stand a chance of persisting; but I do not desire to say 

 that they are useful in proportion as they are unlike 

 their kin. I want to express my conviction that mere 

 sports are rarely useful. Sports are no doubt the result 

 of very unusual or complex stimuli or of unwonted re- 

 frangibility of the energy of growth, and not having 

 been induced by conditions which act uniformly over a 

 course of time, they are likely to be transient. I fully 

 accept Cope's remark that there is "no ground for be- 

 lieving that sports have any considerable influence on 

 the course of evolution. *" * * The method of evolution 

 has apparently been one of successional increment and 

 decrement of parts along definite lines." Amongst do- 

 mestic animals and plants the selection and breeding of 

 sports, or very unusual and marked variations, has been 

 a leading cause of their strange and diverse evolution. 

 In fact, it is in this particular thing that the work of 

 the breeder and the gardener is most unlike the work 

 of nature. But in feral conditions, the sport may be 

 likened to an attribute out of place ; and I imagine that 

 fts chief effect upon the phylogeny of a race — if any 

 effect it have — is in giving rise in its turn to a brood of 

 less erratic unlikenesses. This question of sports has 



3 SUR. 



