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The older one grows one would expect the more one would know, this perhaps one does, 

 and at the last only find out how little it is. We are yet, and will be probably for ever, in 

 our infancy as to the accurate knowledge of what constitutes a species not of birds only, but of 

 all things animal and vegetable in Nature's work. This is of course a wide question, but some 

 persons write about some hybrids between two nearly allied (I add supposed) species, as if they 

 knew them to be produced from different species, but I would ask them how they do know, 

 and where they acquired their information? There can be no doubt but every naturally 

 created substance, animate and inanimate, was and is perfect of its kind, and entirely suited for the 

 condition Nature intended it to exist in, and remains perfect so long as Nature requires it in its 

 existing form ; but, so soon as it fulfils its mission, Nature will dispense with it by some means. 



All of these substances alluded to have been arranged for convenience by man in groups, 

 or what might be called genera, in the living creation, as quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, shells, 

 and insects, then the plants and trees, and the inanimate structures, as minerals, metals, and so 

 forth. Then each group has again and again been subdivided into subgenera for the purpose 

 of pointing out the different divisions of each group, as amongst the birds, eagles, ducks, and 

 others the insects, beetles, butterflies, and so on with all the other groups of Nature's 

 productions ; but it seems when we consider all matters concerning all and each of them, and 

 go into the question of the word species, so commonly used, we are at a complete loss as to 

 what it means not only the several so-called species often being indivisible from both outward 

 and inward appearances, but in some cases even the subgenera have no very decided distinctions, 

 some of them more or less approximating to others in some respect, but being far away in 

 various ways. 



