OBSERVATIONS ON HYBRIDS. 



253 



The vegetable and animal worlds present so much similarity in almost 

 everything which respects the generation of offspring, that the extent to 

 which mules are permitted to exist in the animal world might have been 

 expected to point out the utmost limits of their existence amongst plants ; 

 for every animal is driven by its instinctive feelings to seek its proper 

 mate, whilst an unrestrained and unlimited intercourse between plants is 

 carried on by the incidental operation of wind and insects. But if the 

 fruit-tree obtained from the almond and pollen of the peach be a mule, 

 nature has already permitted it to propagate offspring to an extent 

 rarely, if at all, known in the animal world. I have, however, heard it 

 asserted, that female mule birds have been known to breed under similar 

 circumstances ; that is, with a male of the same species as the male parent 

 of the mule : but upon trying the experiment, it did not succeed at all in 

 my hands. The mule birds laid eggs, apparently well organised, upon 

 which they sat ; but the eggs soon became putrid ; and I had good reason 

 to believe, that the first pulse of life had never beaten in any of them. 



If hybrid plants had been formed as abundantly as Linnaeus and some 

 of his followers have imagined, and such had proved capable of affording 

 offspring, all traces of genus and species must surely long ago have been 

 lost and obliterated ; for the seed-vessel even of a monogynous blossom 

 often affords plants which are obviously the offspring of different male 

 parents ; and I believe I could adduce many facts which would satisfac- 

 torily prove that a single plant is often the offspring of more than one, 

 and, in some instances, of many male parents. Under such circumstances, 

 every species of plant which, either in a natural state or cultivated by 

 man, has been once made to sport in varieties, must almost of necessity 

 continue to assume variations of form. Some of these have often been 

 found to resemble other species of the same genus, or other varieties 

 of the same species, and of permanent habits, which were assumed to be 

 species ; but I have never yet seen a hybrid plant, capable of affording 

 offspring, which had been proved, by anything like satisfactory evidence, 

 to have sprung from two originally distinct species ; and I must therefore 

 continue to believe, that no species capable of propagating offspring, either 

 of plant or animal, now exists, which did not come as such immediately 

 from the hand of the Creator. 



Having spoken, in the preceding account, of mule birds, I will take 

 this opportunity of recording a very singular circumstance which came 



preceding years, afforded imperfect blossoms only. If such pollen prove efficient, which I see 

 no reason to doubt, either the specific identity of the peach and almond, or the transmuta- 

 bility of the two species, will be proved. But if the peach be an originally distinct species, 

 where could it have lain concealed from the Creation to the reign of Claudius Ccesar ? 



