44 UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. [Chap. I, 



characters, and relatively so slight in internal parts or 

 organs. Man can hardly select, or only with much 

 difficulty, any deviation of structure excepting such as 

 is externally visible; and indeed he rarely cares for 

 what is internal. He can never act by selection, 

 excepting on variations which are iirst given to him in 

 some slight degree by nature.^ No man would ever try 

 to make a fantail till he saw a pigeon with a tail de- 

 veloped in some slight degree in an unusual manner, 

 or a pouter till he saw a pigeon with a crop of some- 

 what unusual size-jland the more abnormal or unusual 

 any character was when it first appeared, the more likely 

 it would be to catch his attention. But to use such an 

 expression as trying to make a fantail, is, I have no 

 doubt, in most cases, utterly incorrect. The man who 

 first selected a pigeon with a slightly larger tail, never 

 dreamed what the descendants of that pigeon would be- 

 come through long-continued, partly unconscious and 

 partly methodical, selection. Perhaps the parent-bird 

 of all fantails had only fourteen tail-feathers somewhat 

 expanded, like the present Java fantail, or like individ- 

 uals of other and distinct breeds, in which as many as 

 seventeen tail-feathers have been counted. Perhaps the 

 first pouter-pigeon did not inflate its crop much more 

 than the turbit now does the upper part of its oesopha- 

 gi] s,— a habit which is disregarded by all fanciers, as it 

 is not one of the points of the breed. 



ISTor let it be thought that some great deviation of 

 structure would be necessary to catch the fancier's eye: 

 he perceives extremely small differences, and it is in 

 human nature to value any novelty, however slight, jn 

 one's own possession. Nor must the value which would 

 formerly have been set on any slight differences in the 



