Chap. XIV. EECAPITULATION. 423 



the queen bee for lier own fertile daughters ; at it lincumoiiid:c 

 fcediiifr within the livin"^ bodies of ciiterpilhirs ; und ut other 

 such cases. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural 

 selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection 

 have not been observed. 



The complex and little-known laws governing acknowl- 

 edged variations are the same, as far as we can see, with the 

 laws which have governed the production of so-called specific 

 dillcrences. In both cases physical conditions seem to have 

 produced some direct and definite eflect, but how much we 

 cannot say. Thus when varieties enter any new station, they 

 occasionally assume some of the characters proper to the spe- 

 cies of that station. In I'otli varieties and species, use and dis- 

 use seem to have produced a considerable eflfect ; for it is im- 

 possible to resist this conclusion when we look, for instance, 

 at the logger-headed duck, which has wings incajiable of flight, 

 in nearly the same condition as in the domestic duck; or when 

 we look at the burrowing tncutucu, v.hich is occasionally 

 l)lind, and then at certain moles, which are habitually blind 

 and have tlieir eyes cov^ercd witli skin ; or wlicn we look at 

 the blind animals inhabiting the dark caves of America and 

 Europe. In varieties and species correlated variation seems to 

 have played an im})ortant part, so that when one part has 

 been modified other parts have been necessarily modified. In 

 both varieties and species reversions to long-lost characters oc- 

 cur. How inexplicable on the theory of creation is the occa- 

 sional ajipearance of stripes on the shoulders and legs of the 

 several species of the horse-genus and of their hybrids ! How 

 simply is this fact explained if we believe that these species 

 arc all descended from a stri{)ed progenitor, in the same man- 

 ner as the several domestic breeds of the pigeon are descended 

 from the blue and barred rock-pigeon ! 



On the ordinary view of eacli species having been iudc- 

 ju'!id('iitly created, why should the specific characters, or those 

 l)y which the species of the same genus diflcr from each other, 

 be more variable than the generic characters in which they all 

 agree? Why, for instance, should the color of a flower be 

 more likel}' to vary in any one species of a genus, if the other 

 species, supposed to have been created independently, have 

 diffenMitly-colored flowers, than if all the species of the genus 

 have the same colort'd flowers? If species are only well- 

 marked varieties, of which the characters have become in a 

 high degree pcnnanent, Ave can understand this fact; for they 



