376 Canadian Record of Science 



augmenting these improvements. His argument turns 

 on the changes produced on domestic plants and animals. 



These changes show at least that nature's produc- 

 tions are capable of being greatly modified by the inter- 

 position of man. The varieties in the pigeon family are 

 made to do large service in Darwin's discussions; yet 

 marked though the results in breeding, under man's 

 oversight, have been in their case, they remain only 

 varities because they freely breed between themselves 

 and the male offspring is fertile, showing that he is not 

 a hybrid. Indeed the reference to pigeons as well as 

 cats and dogs may be turned against Darwin, for all 

 these creatures entered into the menage of the ancient 

 Egyptians 5900 years ago, as Antiquarians tell us. By 

 this time one might expect that they should, through 

 variation and the several influences Darwin rests on, 

 have given rise to a new species. But aside from that 

 the author of the "Origin of Species" has adroitly as- 

 sumed that, because man has been able to make use of 

 variations in domesticated organisms for his profit and 

 advantage, such changes have been for the profit and 

 advantage of the species thus domesticated, and that if 

 they have profited under human selection why might 

 they not in like manner profit by variation under the 

 processes of nature? 



Heredity is undoubtedly the most influential factor 

 in the production and moulding of the forms of living 

 things. The child takes after his parents, sometimes be- 

 ing more like his father and at other times more like his 

 mother. He is indeed not an exact counterpart or re- 

 production of either, but there is generally noticeable a 

 family likeness. What we now see is a circuitous course 

 — the tree yielding fruit which in turn gives birth to a 

 tree like itself; the egg laid by the bird hatching out a 

 bird like the mother one. Thus there is a perpetual 

 round. The question debated of old, whether the egg or 

 the hen was first, has not yet been settled, but what is 

 the order of procedure at present ? "We know that every 



