70 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



ground for their own subsistence, would transmit, as truly 

 as they now do, their short muzzles and legs, and their 

 tendency to fatten. Dray-horses assuredly would not 

 long transmit their great size and massive limbs, if com- 

 pelled to live in a cold, damp, mountainous region ; we 

 have, indeed, evidence of such deterioration in the horses 

 which have run wild on the Falkland Islands. European 

 dogs i^ India often fail to transmit their true character. 

 Our sheep in tropical countries lose their wool in a few 

 generations. There seems also to be a close relation be- 

 tween certain peculiar pastures and the inheritance of an 

 enlarged tail in fat-tailed sheep, which form one of the 

 most ancient breeds in the world. With plants, we have 

 seen that tropical varieties of maize lose their proper 

 character in the course of two or three generations, when 

 cultivated in Europe ; and conversely so it is with Euro- 

 pean varieties cultivated in Brazil, Our cabbages, which 

 here come so true by seed, can not form heads in hot 

 countries. According to Carridre, the purple-leafed beech 

 and barberry transmit their character by seed far less 

 truly in certain districts than in others. Under changed 

 circumstances, periodical habits of life soon fail to be 

 transmitted, as the period of maturity in summer and 

 winter wheat, barley, and vetches. So it is with animals : 

 for instance, a person, whose statement I can trust, pro- 

 cured eggs of Aylesbury ducks from that town, where 

 they are kept in houses, and are reared as early as possible 

 for the London market ; the ducks bred from these eggs 

 in a distant part of England, hatched their first brood on 

 January 24th, while common ducks, kept in the same yard 

 and treated in the same manner, did not hatch till the 

 end of March ; and this shows that the period of hatch- 

 ing was inherited. But the grandchildren of these Ayles- 

 bury ducks completely lost their habit of early incuba- 



