VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION 



67 



be more fully ;xplainod, two sub-breeds might be 

 formed. This, perhaps, partly explains why the varieties 

 kept by savages, as has been remarked by some authors, 

 have more of the character of true species than the 

 varieties kept in civilized countries. 



On the view here given of the important part which 

 selection by man has played, it becomes at once obvious 

 how it is that our domestic races show adaptation in 

 their structure or in their habits to man's wants or fan- 

 cies. We can, I think, further understand the frequently 

 abnormal character of our domestic races, and likewise 

 their differences being so great in external characters, 

 and relatively so slight in internal parts or organs. Man 

 can hardly select, or only with much difficulty, any devia- 

 tion of structure excepting such as is externally visible; 

 and indeed he rarely cares for what is internal. He can^ 

 never act by selection, excepting on variations which are 

 first given to him in some slight degree by nature. No 

 man would ever try to make a fantail till he saw a 

 pigeon with a tail developed in some slight degree in an 

 unusual manner, or a pouter till he saw a pigeon with 

 a crop of somewhat unusual size; and the more abnormal 

 or unusual any character was when it first appeared, the 

 more likely it would be to catch his attention. But to 

 use such an expression as trying to make a fantail, is^ 

 I have no doubt, in most cases, utterly incorrect. The 

 man who first selected a pigeon with a slightly larger 

 tail, never dreamed what the descendants of that pigeon 

 would become through long-continued, partly unconscious 

 and partly methodical, selection. Perhaps the parent-bird 

 of all lantails had only fourteen tail-feathers somewhat 

 expanded, like the present Java fantail, or like Individ- 



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