Chap. XV. Recapitulation. 415 



one country, although on the ordinary view supposed to have been 

 created and specially adapted for that country, being beaten and 

 supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land. Nor 

 ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as far 

 as we can judge, absolutely perfect, as in the case even of the 

 human eye ; or if some of them be abhorrent to our ideas of 

 fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of the bee, when used 

 against an enemy, causing the bee's own death ; at drones being 

 produced in such great numbers for one single act, and being then 

 slaughtered by their sterile sisters ; at the astonishing waste of 

 pollen by our fir-trees ; at the instinctive hatred of the queen-bee 

 for her own fertile daughters ; at ichneumonidaa feeding within the 

 living bodies of caterpillars ; or at other such cases. The wonder 

 indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the 

 want of absolute perfection have not been detected. 



The complex and little known laws governing the production 

 of varieties are the same, as far as we can judge, with the laws 

 which have governed the production of distinct species. In both 

 cases physical conditions seem to have produced some direct 

 and definite effect, but how much we cannot say. Thus, when 

 varieties enter any new station, they occasionally assume some of 

 the characters proper to the species of that station. With both 

 varieties and species, use and disuse seem to have produced a 

 considerable effect; for it is impossible to resist this conclusion 

 when we look, for instance, at the logger-headed duck, which has 

 wings incapable of flight, in nearly the same condition as in the 

 domestic duck ; or when we look at the burrowing tucu-tucu, which 

 is occasionally blind, and then at certain moles, which are habitually 

 blind and have their eyes covered with skin ; or when we look 

 at the blind animals inhabiting the dark caves of America and 

 Europe. With varieties and species, correlated variation seems to 

 have played an important part, so that when one part has been 

 modified other parts have been necessarily modified. With both 

 varieties and species, reversions to long-lost characters occasionally 

 occur. How inexplicable on the theory of creation is the occasional 

 appearance of stripes on the shoulders and legs of the several species 

 of the horse-genus and of their hybrids ! How simply is this fact 

 explained if we believe that these species are all descended from a 

 striped progenitor, in the same manner as the several domestic 

 breeds of the pigeon are descended from the blue and barred rock- 

 pigeon ! 



On the ordinary view of each species having been independently 

 created, why should specific characters, or those by which the 



