﻿Characters as Adaptive and Specific. 191 



before they have had time enough to be firmly 

 fixed by heredity 1 ? 



If, however, even this should be denied, what 

 will be said of the second case, that of the niata 

 cattle ? 



"I saw two herds on the northern bank of the Plata. . . . The 

 forehead is very short and broad, with the nasal end of the skull, 

 together with the whole plane of the upper molar-teeth, curved 

 upwards. The lower jaw projects beyond the upper, and has 

 a corresponding upward curvature. . . . The skull which I pre- 

 sented to the College of Surgeons has been thus described 

 by Professor Owen. ' It is remarkable from the stunted develop- 

 ment of the nasals, premaxillaries, and fore part of the lower 

 jaw, which is unusually curved upwards to come into contact 

 with the premaxillaries. The nasal bones are about one-third 

 the ordinary length, but retain almost their normal breadth. 

 The triangular vacuity is left between them and the frontal 

 and lachrymal, which latter bone articulates with the pre- 

 maxillary, and thus excludes the maxillary from any junction 



1 In the next paragraph Mr. Wallace says that the appendages in 

 question " are apparently of the same nature as the ' sports ' that arise 

 in our domesticated productions, but which, as Mr. Darwin says, 

 without the aid of selection would soon disappear." But I cannot 

 find that Mr. Darwin has made any such statement : what he does 

 say is, that whether or not a useless peculiarity will soon disappear 

 without the aid of selection depends upon (he nature of the causes which 

 produce it. If these causes are of a merely transitory nature, the 

 peculiarity will also be transitory ; but if the causes be constant, so will 

 be the result. Again, the point to be noticed about this " sport " is, 

 that, unlike what is usually understood by a " sport," it affects a whole 

 race or breed, is transmitted by sexual propagation, and has already 

 attained so definite a size and structure, that it can only be reasonably 

 accounted for by supposing the continued operation of some constant 

 cause. This cause can scarcely be correlation of growth, since closely 

 similar appendages are often seen in so different an animal as a 

 goat. Here, also, they run in breeds or strains, are strongly inherited, 

 and more "constant," as well as more " symmetrical " than they are 

 in pigs. This, at all events, is the account I have received of them 

 from goat-breeders in Switzerland. 



