It would really appear to be possible that varieties of many different created substances, 

 animal as well as vegetable, obtained through man's exertions, may have been and we may say 

 are being adopted by Nature, and perhaps have become and are becoming permanent in such 

 condition in localities far away from where the varieties originated, and, after having been 

 localized at particular places for some time, have from local or other causes altered so greatly 

 in form and colour as not to be traceable to what they originally sprung from, and Nature may 

 sometimes use such means to produce what she requires to occupy a country perhaps entirely 

 changed in character from its original state by man's work. If this is so, and has been going 

 on for a great length of time, it might account in some cases for the great difficulty there is 

 in deciding really what does constitute a species, and which must point out that on the subject 

 we will probably never know more than we now do. 



It is a very curious fact that in some species of almost every group of Nature's works we 

 find one what we call species (apparently as created) constant in its appearance, irrespective of 

 sex even, in size, shape, and colour, and another closely allied just the reverse in each parti- 

 cular. Why is this, and how to be accounted for? I make this remark, totally setting aside such 

 as have been interfered with to our certain knowledge by man ; some of the instances being 

 such insignificant subjects as insects found in jungles still in their original condition, which it 

 would certainly appear could not have been under any influence from man. 



Nature seems often to have very marked permanent varieties of her productions to occupy 

 different localities, the varieties most marked being those occupying the most opposite sorts of 

 positions but merging into each other where the different positions meet. We find this in some 



