12 YELLOW -BUMPED PABBAKEET. 



being, as Professor Owen says: the existence of "a continuously oper- 

 ative secondary creational power", which even the late Mr. Darwin 

 admitted in the following terms: — "Certain elemental atoms had been 

 commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues", but limits the number 

 of original progenitors to four or five: while "Analogy", he adds, 

 " would lead me - one step further, namely, to the belief that all ani- 

 mals and plants have descended from some one primordial form, into 

 which life was first breathed." (p. 414.) Surely a most unnecessary 

 hypothesis. 



"Observation", continues Professor Owen, "of the actual change of 

 any one species into another, through any or all of the above hypo- 

 thetical transmuting influences, has not yet been recorded; and past 

 experience of the chance aims of human fancy, unchecked and unguided 

 by observed facts, shews how widely they have ever glanced away 

 from the gold centre of truth." 



That man has the power of producing and perpetuating varieties in 

 many species of domesticated animals is undoubted, we need only point 

 to the many breeds of dogs, pigeons, and poultry; but these varieties 

 are not distinct species, they breed inter se, and the progeny is fruitful; 

 while the offspring of species that bear a much closer resemblance to 

 each other than a pouter-pigeon, for instance, does to a fantail, are 

 barren, because the parents belong to different species and are not 

 descended from one another, witness the case of the horse and the ass; 

 but the columbine cross to which we have referred is capable of re- 

 production, because the parents, though having little likeness to each 

 other, are varieties of the one species, and not at all distinct: man 

 cannot make species, though he can produce varieties, neither can 

 "circumstances" or "changes of condition"; to create is the prerogative 

 of the Most High, whose works are inimitable. 



To return to our Yellow-rumped Parrakeets: they are nice, quiet, 

 gentle birds, susceptible of being perfectly tamed, are easily fed and 

 kept in captivity, but are by no means descended from either a Great 

 Vaza Parrot, or a Black Cockatoo. 



