166 INTRODUCTION. 



absolutely cease to be prolific) to one of the original stocks, appears the 

 greatest proof possible of the specific genuineness of that stock, the attrac- 

 tive power of whose typical organization (to use the expression) is so pre- 

 valent as to reclaim to itself the unsettled hybrid, destitute of the stamp of 

 independent originality. 



The hybrids between the Chinese Goose (Anser cygnoides), and the 

 common Goose, are prolific ; but, unless crossed again with the Chinese 

 Goose, the race soon returns to the characters of the ordinary domestic 

 species. (See Pallas. Act. Acad. Scient. Petrop. 178, p. 83, note ; p. 96.) 



Neither the occasional fertility, then, of hybrids, inter se, nor the 

 production of offspring, by the union of a hybrid with one of the pure 

 species from which it sprung, demonstrates that the two species, from 

 which such hybrids originate, are falsely so called, and that they are mere 

 varieties of one common, primitive parentage. 



That species branch out into varieties, and often permanent varieties 

 (at least, if strictly interbred together), cannot be disputed for a moment ; 

 it is on this principle of interbreeding between such, that the purity 

 of the Race-horse, of the Bull-dog, Hound, Setter, or Terrier is main- 

 tained, and the respective qualities of each prevented from degenerating ; 

 an alloy, by the intermixture of another breed, shews itself, generation after 

 generation, with more or less regularity and distinctness ; and, if farther 

 alloys be permitted, the result is, a mongrel generation, not a hybrid race. 



One peculiar variety, which we see both in the human species and in the 

 lower orders of Mammalia, is the Albino. Albinos, among animals, are dis- 

 tinguished from simply white individuals, by the pale, pinky, and unnatural 

 tint of the skin ; the softness, and absolute whiteness of the hair, including the 

 eye-lashes ; the rose-colour of the iris, and the redness of the pupil. Often, 

 indeed, in the human subject, the skin is covered with a sort of scurf, and 

 is dry, or harsh, as if the excretions of the surface were suspended ; the 

 eyes are intolerant of light. Albinism is a variety by defect ; the colour- 

 ing principle of the skin, the hair, and the iris, and the pigmentum 

 nigrum of the eyes, are wanting ; so that the vascular choroid membrane 

 of the latter appears through the pupil ; while the vascularity of the 

 cutis, and of the iris, gives a pinkiness to the surface of the body, and 

 a deeper, or red, tint to the latter. The constitution of Albinos is feeble ; 

 and the intellectual powers are often, if not always, of comparative in- 

 feriority. Albinos appear among all nations ; they occur among the 

 fairest races of Europe, and among the darkest of Africa ; their pecu- 

 liarities exist from birth, and are transmissible by generation.* Among 



* Albinos of the human race, were noticed by Cook at Tahiti (Otaheite), and by Wafer, in the 

 Isthmus of Darien ; their occurrence is frequent in the mountain regions of Europe, and not un- 

 common among the Negro races of Africa. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, records several cases; 

 and, among them, one of an albino woman, from Guinea, who bore an albino child to a black man; 

 and another, of an albino Negress, who had a black daughter by a black man. We know of no 



