Chap. I.J DOMESTIC PIGEONS. 33 



has attended, are descended from so many aboriginally 

 distinct species. Ask, as I have asked, a celebrated 

 raiser of Hereford cattle, whether his cattle might not 

 have descended from Long-horns, or both from a 

 common parent-stock, and he will laugh you to scorn. 

 I have never met a pigeon, or poultry, or duck, or 

 rabbit fancier, who was not fully convinced that each 

 main breed was descended from a distinct species. 

 Van Mons, in his treatise on pears and apples, shows 

 how utterly he disbelieves that the several sorts, for 

 instance a Eibston-pippin or Codlin-apple, could ever 

 have proceeded from the seeds of the same tree. In- 

 numerable other examples could be given. The ex- 

 planation, I think, is simple : from long- continued 

 study they are strongly impressed with the differences 

 between the several races ; and though they well know 

 that each race varies slightly, for they win their prizes 

 by selecting such slight differences, yet they ignore all 

 general arguments, and refuse to sum up in their 

 minds slight differences accumulated during many 

 successive generations. May not those naturalists 

 who, knowing far less of the laws of inheritance than 

 does the breeder, and knowing no more than he does of 

 the intermediate links in the long lines of descent, yet 

 admit that many of our domestic races are descended 

 from the same parents — may they not learn a lesson 

 of caution, when they deride the idea of species in a 

 state of nature being lineal descendants of other 

 species ? 



