DIVISIONS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. Ixi 



blance, is matter likewise of common observation. By the 

 successive reproduction between the individuals of a tribe or 

 nation, a common set of characters is by degrees acquired, 

 which, becoming permanent, generate a true race. This 

 effect is most notable in small and insulated tribes, whose 

 members intermarry only with one another. In the Ameri- 

 can forests, many of the tribes of Indians can be distinguished 

 from one another at a glance. In the case of the Celtic na- 

 tives of Europe, the Clans became frequently as much dis- 

 tinguished from one another by feature as by their mutual 

 hatred ; and the characters which they had acquired are in 

 many cases retained by their descendants to the present 

 hour. In the countries of the East, where the barrier of 

 castes had been established, all the distinctions of race are 

 seen to be established, so that the members of different castes 

 can be discriminated from one another as readily as the in- 

 habitants of distant countries. 



It has been frequently observed, that what are termed ac- 

 cidental variations are susceptible of being transmitted and 

 rendered permanent characters. Some persons have been 

 born with six fingers or toes, and this peculiarity being trans- 

 mitted, has continued in the same family for generations. 

 The case of a family in England, whose bodies were covered 

 with cuticular appendages resembling the quills of porcu- 

 pines, has been often cited ; and a breed of sheep in America 

 was procured, having short limbs resembling those of an 

 otter, and therefore termed the otter breed. We cannot, 

 however, term such varieties accidental. There is nothing 

 in the phenomena of nature, to which the term accident can 

 be justly applied. The characters were doubtless the result 

 of some organic change proper to the animals in which they 

 appeared, and their transmission to their progeny is only the 

 exemplification of a law common to other cases of transmitted 

 characters. 



The permanence of characters acquired by varieties is often 

 wonderfully great. In the sculptured monuments of the 



