PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS 85 



the thing is assumed and accepted, it is extremely difficult 

 to get anything like good evidence of it. It is constantly 

 said, for example, that if domesticated Horses are turned 

 wild, as they have been in some parts of Asia Minor and 

 South America, that they return at once to the primitive 

 stock from which they were bred. But the first answer 

 that you make to this assumption is, to ask who knows 

 what the primitive stock was ; and the second answer is, 

 that in that case the wild Horses of Asia Minor ought to 

 be exactly like the wild Horses of South America. If they 

 are both like the same thing, they ought manifestly to be 

 like each other 1 The best authorities, however, tell you 

 that it is quite different. The wild Horse of Asia is said 

 to be of a dun colour, with a largish head, and a great many 

 other peculiarities ; while the best authorities on the wild 

 Horses of South America tell you that there is no similarity 

 between their wild Horses and those of Asia Minor ; the 

 cut of their heads is very different, and they are commonly 

 chestnut or bay-coloured. It is quite clear, therefore, that 

 as by these facts there ought to have been two primitive 

 stocks, they go for nothing in support of the assumption 

 that races recur to one primitive stock, and so far as this 

 evidence is concerned, it falls to the ground. 



Suppose for a moment that it were so, and that 

 domesticated races, when turned wild, did return to some 

 common condition, I cannot see that this would prove 

 much more than that similar conditions are likely to 

 produce similar results ; and that when you take back 

 domesticated animals into what we call natural conditions, 

 you do exactly the same thing as if you carefully undid all 

 the work you had gone through, for the purpose of bringing 

 the animal from its wild to its domesticated state. I do 

 not see anything very wonderful in the fact, if it took all 

 that trouble to get it from a wild state, that it should go 

 back into its original state as soon as you removed the 

 conditions which produced the variation to the domesticated 

 form. There^ is an important fact, however, forcibly 

 brought forward by Mr. Darwin, which has been noticed in 

 connection with the breeding of domesticated pigeons ; 

 and it is, that however different these breeds of pigeons 

 may be from each other, and we have already noticed the 

 great differences in these breeds, that if, among any of 

 those variations, you chance to have a blue pigeon turn 

 up, it will be sure to have the black bars across the wings. 



