PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS. 115 



Mr. Darwin has very forcibly urged, that nothing is 

 commoner than if you examine a dun horse — and 

 I had an opportunity of verifying this illustration 

 lately, while in the islands of the West Highlands, 

 where there are a great many dun horses — to find that 

 horse exhibit a long black stripe down his back, very 

 often stripes on his shoulder, and very often stripes 

 on his legs. 1, myself, saw a pony of this description 

 a short time ago, in a baker's cart, near Rothesay, in 

 Bute : it had the long stripe down the back, and stripes 

 on the shoulders and legs, just like those of the Ass, 

 the Quagga, and the Zebra. Now, if we interpret the 

 theory of recurrence as applied to this case, might it 

 not be said that here was a case of a variation exhibit- 

 ing the characters and conditions of an animal occupy- 

 ing something like an intermediate position between 

 the Horse, the Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra, and 

 from which these had been developed? In the same 

 way with regard even to Man. Every anatomist will 

 tell you that there is nothing commoner, in dissecting 

 the human body, than to meet with what are called 

 muscular variations — that is, if you dissect two bodies 

 very carefully, you will probably find that the modes 

 of attachment and insertion of the muscles are not 

 exactly the same in both, there being great pecu- 

 liarities in the mode in which the muscles are 

 arranged ; and it is very singular, that in some 

 dissections of the human body you will come upon 

 arrangements of the muscles very similar indeed to the 

 same parts in the Apes. Is the conclusion in that case 

 to be, that this is like the black bars in the case of 

 the Pigeon, and that it indicates a recurrence to the 



h 2 



