472 M. de Quatrefages 07i Charles Darwin. 



These I cannot enumerate here. Moreover, some of them 

 are bejond my range. I shall only refer to the two volumes 

 devoted to the study of variation in animals and plants under 

 the influence of domestication ; and in the midst of the mass 

 of facts, observations, and experiments contained in their 

 thousand pages, I shall only dwell for a moment upon the 

 memoir upon pigeons. 



This work required of Darwin ten years of investigations. 

 In order to bring together the materials for it he procured 

 specimens of all the known races of pigeons ; he even pre- 

 pared with his own hand their skeletons, which he has described 

 almost bone by bone. From this study of their external and 

 osteological characters he concluded that these domestic birds, 

 called indifferently by the same name, present, at least, 150 

 more or less distinctly marked forms, all perpetuating them- 

 selves by generation, and capable of being taken for so many 

 species if they were met with living in freedom. These forms 

 are, moreover, so different that, if we were to apply to them 

 the rules of classification employed in the distribution of 

 species, we must form for them five distinct genera. 



In presence of so great a diversity Darwin asked himself 

 whether all these apparent species can be referred to a common 

 initial form ; or whether, as Buffon and Cuvier himself had 

 thought, several wild species had mingled their blood to 

 engender what we call the domestic pigeons. Now, by an 

 entire series of exact facts and rigorous deductions he suc- 

 ceeded in showing that all our pigeons have descended from the 

 rock-dove, Columha livia of naturalists. Then he checks by 

 experiment this result deduced from observation. He couples 

 the most dissimilar forms ; he accumulates in the same sub- 

 jects the blood of the representatives of the five supposed 

 genera, of which I spoke above ; and he finds that these com- 

 plex products lose none of their fertility.. Finally, as a 

 countercheck, he couples these pigeons with species other 

 than the rock-dove, and demonstrates the disappearance of 

 fecundity. 



Nothing can be clearer than the consequences which result 

 from this arduous labour. The species may vary almost 

 indefinitely in the forms of its representatives without losing- 

 its fundamental character, namely the faculty of reproducing 

 itself. The physiological separation of species, even when 

 very nearly allied, is just as clearly demonstrated by these 

 experiments. All these facts are in absolute contradiction 

 with the very basis of the theory which assumes the evolution 

 and the transmutation of the species. Does Darwin, there- 

 fore, deny or misrepresent them? Certainly not ; and it is 



