THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 31 



variations which he prizes when he plants the seed of 

 a favorite fruit, preserves a favorite domestic animal, 

 drowns the uglier kittens of a litter, and allows only 

 the handsomest or the best mousers to propagate. Still 

 more, by methodical selection, in recent times almost 

 marvelous results have been produced in new breeds 

 of cattle, sheep, and poultry, and new varieties of fruit 

 of greater and greater size or excellence. 



It is said that all domestic varieties, if left to run 

 wild, would revert to their aboriginal stocks. Proba- 

 bly they would wherever various races of one species 

 were left to commingle. At least the abnormal or 

 exaggerated characteristics induced by high feeding, or 

 high cultivation and prolonged close breeding, would 

 promptly disappear; and the surviving stock would 

 soon blend into a homogeneous result (in a way pres- 

 ently explained), which would naturally be taken for 

 the original form ; but we could seldom know if it 

 were so. It is by no means certain that the result 

 would be the same if the races ran wild each in a sepa- 

 rate region. Dr. Hooker doubts if there is a true re- 

 version in the case of plants. Mr. Darwin's observa- 

 tions rather favor it in the animal kingdom. With 

 mingled races reversion seems well made out in the 

 case of pigeons. The common opinion upon this sub- 

 ject therefore probably has some foundation. But 

 even if we regard varieties as oscillations around a 

 primitive centre or type, still it appears from the 

 readiness with which such varieties originate that a 

 certain amount of disturbance would carry them be- 

 yond the influence of the primordial attraction, where 

 they may become new centres of variation. 



