YAttlETIES INDUCED BY TRIVIAL CAUSES. 99 



thing more than wildness of character, and restless dis- 

 position, in the powerful attempts it continually makes 

 to defy our artificial boundaries. There is in these 

 efforts a longing for fresh fields and other herbage, an 

 instinctive feeling that all is not as it ought to be ; and 

 yet we attend not to the hint ! Nothing will conduce 

 80 much to the health of the sheep, and to the speedy 

 taking on of fat, as the frequent shifting of the flock. 

 Disease will doubtless still affect the animals, but ill- 

 ness will be rare, and mortality diminished, if by the 

 care of their rulers, they are enabled to obtain what 

 instinct tells them is the best of medicine. 



(85.) Varieties induced by apparently trivial 

 causes. — Surrounded in a civilized state, by all that 

 can minister to the supply of wants, whether real or 

 supposed, man is not on that account to be imagined 

 as always so situated. Look to savage nations, and 

 remark their destitute condition, their dependence on 

 the uncertain proceeds of the chase, and their reliance 

 on modes of agriculture as unprofitable as they are un- 

 matured. Countries there are certainly to be found, 

 where the "elements of temperature,*' are so fortunately 

 balanced and combined as to produce only good effects, 

 and in which the rude inhabitants reap the fruits of a 

 spontaneous plenty ; but these form only a small propor. 

 tion of the globe, and in most regions man must give 

 his unceasing endeavours to the cultivation of a plant or 

 animal, before he can raise it from the miniature condi- 

 tion in which he finds it, to such a size and richness as 

 will satisfy his wants. Nor need we go far for illus- 

 trations. The crab has been transformed into the 

 apple, and the sloe into the plum. None of our cereal 



