32 



INHERITANCE. 



Chap. XIII. 



and Mr. Hewett C. Watson, as he informs me, selected 



three generations 



a 



the 



diverging plants of Scotch 



perhaps one of the least modified varieties of the 

 and in the third generation some of the plants came very 

 to the forms now established in England about old castle- 

 and called indigenous." 



cabbage 



5 



Reversion in Animals and Plants which have run wild. In 



the cases hitherto considered, the reverting animals and plants 



have not been exposed to any great or abrupt change in their 



In several cases we do not know the aboriginal 



conditions of life which could have induced this tendency 

 but it is very different with animals and plants which have 

 become feral or run wild. It has been repeatedly asserted 

 in the most positive manner by various authors, that feral 

 animals and plants invariably return to their primitive specific 

 type. It is curious on what little evidence this belief rests. 

 Many of our domesticated animals could not subsist in a 

 wild state ; thus, the more highly improved breeds of the 

 pigeon will not " field " or search for their own food. Sheep 

 have never become feral, and would be destroyed by almost every 

 beast of prey. 



parent-species, and cannot possibly tell whether or not there has 

 been any close degree of reversion. It is not known in any 

 instance what variety was first turned out; several varieties 

 have probably in some cases run wild, and their crossing alone 

 would tend to obliterate their proper character. Our domesticated 

 animals and plants, when they run wild, must always be exposed 

 to new conditions of life, for, as Mr. Wallace 10 has well remarked, 

 they have to obtain their own food, and are exposed to com- 

 petition with the native productions. Under these circumstances, 

 if our domesticated animals did not undergo change of some 

 kind, the result would be quite opposed to the conclusions 

 arrived at in this work. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that 

 the simple fact of animals and plants becoming feral, does cause 

 some tendency to reversion to the primitive state ; 

 tendency has been much exaggerated by some authors. 



though this 



10 See some excellent remarks on this subject by Mr. Wallace, ' Journal Proc 

 Linn. Soc.,' 1858, vol. iii. p. 60. 



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