Chap. I.] VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION. 11 



laws are which determine the reproduction of animals 

 under confinement, I may mention that carnivorous 

 animals, even from the tropics, breed in this country 

 pretty freely under confinement, with the exception of 

 the plantigrades or bear family, which seldom produce 

 young ; whereas carnivorous birds, with the rarest ex- 

 ceptions, hardly ever lay fertile eggs. Many exotic 

 plants have pollen utterly worthless, in the same 

 condition as in the most sterile hybrids. When, on 

 the one hand, we see domesticated animals and plants, 

 though often weak and sickly, breeding freely under 

 confinement ; and when, on the other hand, we see 

 individuals, though taken young from a state of nature 

 perfectly tamed, long-lived and healthy (of which I 

 could give numerous instances), yet having their re- 

 productive system so seriously affected by unperceived 

 causes as to fail to act, we need not be surprised at this 

 system, when it does act under confinement, acting 

 irregularly, and producing offspring somewhat unlike 

 their parents. I may add, that as some organisms 

 breed freely under the most unnatural conditions (for 

 instance, rabbits and ferrets kept in hutches), showing 

 that their reproductive organs are not easily affected ; 

 so will some animals and plants withstand domestica- 

 tion or cultivation, and vary very slightly — perhaps 

 hardly more than in a state of nature. 



Some naturalists have maintained that all variations 

 are connected with the act of sexual reproduction ; but 

 this is certainly an error ; for I have given in another 

 work a long list of " sporting plants," as they are called 

 by gardeners ; — that is, of plants which have suddenly 

 produced a single bud with a new and sometimes 

 widely different character from that of the other buds 



