212 THE CROSSING, AC, OF PIGEONS AND FOWLS. 



He says (p. 241, Vol. ii, Animals and Plants, &c): 



" It was ordered that the Polish cock should have no 

 comb or wattles, and now a bird thus furnished, would 

 be at once disqualified." 



It will be remembered, that he has previously stated, 

 that the absence of secondary, masculine characters, 

 occasioned partial or perfect sterility. 



He then states the induction (alluded to above), 

 which, if he had any scientific acumen at all, should 

 convince him, that he may not normally, or with im- 

 punity, mould organisms into any form he lists ; but, 

 that all of the characters of the species, are absolutely 

 essential to physiological integrity. 



" When man," says he (p. 273, Vol. ii, Animals 

 and Plants, &c.) "attempts to breed an animal with 

 some serious defect in structure, or in the mutual rela- 

 tion of the parts, he will either partially, or completely 

 fail or encounter much difficulty, and this is, in fact, a 

 form of natural selection. We have seen, that the 

 attempt was once made, in Yorkshire, to, breed cattle 

 with enormous buttocks, but the cows perished so 

 often, that the attempt had to be given up. In some 

 short-faced Tumblers, Mr. Eyton says, ' I am convinced 

 that better head and beak birds have perished in the 

 shell, than were ever hatched.' " 



The " better head and beak birds " to which he 

 ■refers, means those with the smallest beaks and heads. 

 The violation of "the mutual relation of the parts," 

 does not end with this deterioration, in size, of the 

 head and beak, but extends, by correlation with those 

 characters, to the legs and feet; and is aggravated by 

 the reduction, in such birds, of many other features. 



