Chap. XIII. 



REVERSION. 



33 



I will briefly run through the recorded cases. With neither horses nor 

 cattle is the primitive stock known; and it has been shown informer 

 chapters that they have assumed different colours in different countries. 

 Thus the horses which have run wild in South America are generally 

 brownish-bay, and in the East dun-coloured ; their heads have become larger 

 and coarser, and this may be due to reversion. No careful description has 

 been given of the feral goat. Dogs which have run wild in various coun- 

 tries have hardly anywhere assumed a uniform character; but they are 

 probably descended from several domestic races, and aboriginally from 

 several distinct species. Feral cats, both in Europe and La Plata, are 

 regularly striped ; in some cases they have grown to an unusually large 

 size, but do not differ from the domestic animal in any other character. 

 When variously-coloured tame rabbits are turned out in Europe, they 

 generally reacquire the colouring of the wild animal ; there can be no doubt 

 that this does really occur, but we should remember that oddly-coloured and 

 conspicuous animals would suffer much from beasts of prey and from being 

 easily shot ; this at least was the opinion of a gentleman who tried to stock 

 his woods with a nearly white variety; and when thus destroyed, they 

 would in truth be supplanted by, instead of being transformed into, the 

 common rabbit. We have seen that the feral rabbits of Jamaica, and 

 especially of Porto Santo, have assumed new colours and other new cha- 

 racters. The best known case of reversion, and that on which the widely- 

 spread belief in its universality apparently rests, is that of pigs. These 

 animals have run wild in the West Indies, South America, and the Falkland 

 Islands, and have everywhere acquired the dark colour, the thick bristles, 

 and great tusks of the wild boar ; and the young have reacquired longi- 

 tudinal stripes. But even in the case of the pig, Eoulin describes the 

 half-wild animals in different parts of South America as differing in several 

 respects. In Louisiana the pig 11 has run wild, and is said to differ a little 

 in form, and much in colour, from the domestic animal, yet does not closely 

 resemble the wild boar of Europe. With pigeons and fowls, 12 it is not 

 known what variety was first turned out, nor what character the feral 

 birds have assumed. The guinea-fowl in the West Indies, when feral, 

 seems to vary more than in the domesticated state. 



With respect to plants run wild, Dr. Hooker 13 has strongly insisted on 

 what slight evidence the common belief in their power of reversion rests. 

 Godron 14 describes wild turnips, carrots, and celery; but these plants in 

 their cultivated state hardly differ from their wild prototypes, except in the 



11 Dureau de la Malle, in « Comptes 

 Rendus,' torn, xli., 1855, p. 807. From 

 the statements above given, the author 

 concludes that the wild pigs of Louisiana 

 are not descended from the European 

 Sus scrofa. 



12 Capt. W. Allen, in his 'Expedition 

 to the Niger,' states that fowls have run 

 wild on the island of Annobon, and 

 have become modified in form and voice. 

 The^ account is so meagre and vague 



VOL. II. 



that it did not appear to me worth 

 copying; but I now find that Dureau 

 de la Malle (' Comptes Rendus,' torn, 

 xli., 1855, p. 690) advances this as a 

 good instance of reversion to the primi- 

 tive stock, and as confirmatory of a 

 still more vague statement in classical 

 times by Varro. 



13 ' Flora of Australia,' 1859, Intro- 

 duct., p. ix. 



14 ' Del'Espece,' tern. ii. pp. 54, 58, 60. 

 D 



