THE FORMATION OF VARIETIES. 185 



A priori, it is not likely that nature suffers tamely this 

 moulding, of a species, into any form which the utility, 

 fancy, fashion, or caprice of man may dictate. There 

 is a penalty visited upon each individual organism, 

 commensurate with the degree of its departure from 

 the sum of all the positive features of its species. 

 The most outrageous liberties are taken with animal 

 and plant forms ; and, when the penalty presents itself 

 in the shape of the evil effects of close-interbreeding, 

 man, blind as a mole, can not discern the relation 

 between these evil effects, and the disproportionate 

 development which he has occasioned ; but, needs 

 must relegate the phenomena to his favorite category 

 of the inexplicable; or, what is more asinine, he lumps 

 all of the degrees of such effects together, and dubs 

 them a "great law of nature !" 



Among all the animals, under domestication, which 

 have been degenerated, in character, by man, the pig 

 is pre-eminently conspicuous. The more improved (?) 

 the pig becomes, the more are its legs reduced. In 

 the " best bred " pigs, the legs are so small as to be 

 absolutely incompatible with locomotion, and they are 

 incompetent to the very support of the animal. When 

 it is required to remove such individuals, from place to 

 place, it is necessary to carry them. It is, also, often 

 as much as the existence of the individual is worth, to 

 stand it upon its legs. The snout is likewise reduced; 

 being, sometimes, no longer than the nose of a human 

 individual. The tusks are well nigh suppressed; the 

 front of its head is rendered short and concave. Its 

 coat of bristles is suppressed. Its hair is much re- 



