Evidences of Theory of Natural Selection. 297 
Or, to put it in another way, it may be said that 
for thousands of years mankind has been engaged in 
making a gigantic experiment to test, as it were by 
anticipation, the theory of natural selection. For, 
although this prolonged experiment has been carried 
on without any such intention on the part of the ex- 
perimenters, it is none the less an experiment in the 
sense that its results now furnish an overwhelming 
verification of Mr. Darwin’s theory. That is to say, 
they furnish overwhelming proof of the efficacy of the 
selective principle in the modification of organic types, 
when once this principle is brought steadily and con- 
tinuously to bear upon a sufficiently long series of 
generations. 
In order to furnish ocular evidence of the value of 
this line of verification, I have had the following series 
of drawings prepared. Another and equally striking 
series might be made of the products of artificial 
selection in the case of plants; but it seems to me 
that the case of animals is more than sufficient for the 
purpose just stated. Perhaps it is desirable to add 
that considerable care has been bestowed upon the 
execution of these portraits ; and that in every case 
the latter have been taken from the most typical 
specimens of the artificial varicty depicted. Those of 
them which have not been drawn directly from life 
are taken from the most authoritative sources ; and, 
before being submitted to the engraver, they were all 
examined by the best judges in each department. In 
none of the groups, however, have I aimed at an 
exhaustive representation of all the varieties: I 
have merely introduced representatives of as many 
as the page would in each case accommodate. 
