394 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



at this conclusion from the fact that one of the two which 

 died at the Zoological Gardens after four years' captivity 

 was sent to Darwin, who found that the special colouring 

 that distinguished the breed — the absence of black on 

 the tail and ear-tips and the reddish colour on the back — 

 had almost disappeared, and that the whole colouring 

 was very little different from that of the common wild 

 rabbit. Hence Mr. Romanes concludes that other wild 

 species may be really only climatal forms, and their 

 peculiar characters be non-adaptive. But no mention is 

 made of the remarkably small size of these rabbits, which 

 were only about half the weight of the common wdld 

 species and which looked no larger than average rats. If 

 this also were a result of the action on the individuals of 

 scanty food or a peculiar climate, it would have rapidly 

 disappeared with ample food at the Zoological Gardens ; 

 and neither in this point nor in the peculiar form of the 

 posterior end of the skull and interparietal bone, which 

 was so distinct that Darwin figured it (see Animals and 

 Plants under Doinestication, i. p. 118), did he note any 

 difference in the dead animal. It seems probable, there- 

 fore, that the colour-peculiarities of the Porto Santo 

 rabbits were due to a change of tint of the longer hairs 

 which may have been lost during the illness which led to 

 the animal's death. And as we have no information as to 

 the supposed change having been progressive during the 

 four years of confinement, or that it affected the second 

 specimen, no such conclusion as that drawn by Mr. Romanes 

 can be held to be established. But, strange to say, Mr. 

 Romanes did not notice that his own interpretation of 

 this case is directly opposed to the theory of the heredity 

 of acquired characters which he was disposed to favour. 

 For these rabbits had lived in Porto Santo under identical 

 conditions for at least 470 years, that is, for at least 470 

 generations. And yet the acquired characters had not 

 become fixed in all these years ; but, when subjected to 

 new conditions, the very individuals brought from Porto 

 Santo changed back, according to Mr. Romanes, to the 

 original type of the common wild rabbit. If this were 

 so, surely there never was, or hardly can ever be, a more 



