False Atavism 215 



and in other cases the evidence relied upon does 

 not suffice to exclude this assumption. Many a 

 beautiful argument has of late lost its force by 

 this test. 



Returning to our starting point we may now 

 state that regular reversions to a specific type 

 characterize a form as a variety of that species. 

 These reversions, however, are not due to an 

 innate tendency, but to undetected spontaneous 

 crosses. 



