12 
YELLOW-BUMPED PARRAKEET. 
being, as Professor Owen says: tbe 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 
Yaza Parrot, or a Black Cockatoo. 
