DARWIN'S THEORY. 11 



appearing, have been developed in all of the varieties, 

 and each of those varieties is marked solely by the 

 high degree of development to which some one of its 

 features has been carried. Where, in any species, all 

 of the characters arising by variation, have been fixed 

 and retained in each variety, with no one character 

 extraordinarily well developed, in comparison with the 

 others — the breeds or varieties of the species, being 

 distinguishable from each other merely by minute dif- 

 ferences in the size or proportion of the features devel- 

 oped — there results convergence of character; which 

 is less frequently met with, than is divergence of char- 

 acter. An instance in point, with respect to the diver- 

 sity, or divergence of character above mentioned, is the 

 Pigeon ; each of whose principal varieties, has some 

 one feature peculiarity characteristic of it. An instance 

 of convergence of character, which Darwin gives, is 

 the Cow, whose varieties, or breeds, have peculiarities 

 which are not very distinct. 



Variation also results, through the loss or reduction 

 of some characters which the species had, when taken 

 from the state of nature. Variation, of this kind, is 

 exemplified in the case of the tailless breeds, the ear- 

 less breeds, turn-spit dogs, niata cattle (with their lips 

 shortened) and, in the case of the " improved " Pig, 

 whose tusks have been greatly reduced, whose bristles 

 and hair have been well-nigh lost, whose legs have 

 been reduced to the smallest possible size compatible 

 with locomotion, and the front of whose head has 

 been rendered short and concave. 



While some species, under domestication, such as 



