290 A COMMENTARY ON NOS. VII. AND VIII. OP THE NATURALIST.’^ 
tinge when from the latter country, although there is no other perceptible distinc¬ 
tion ; the Magellanic specimens, however,'’add to this diversity a decided differ¬ 
ence of structure in the bill, wherefore these have been specified as 0. Magella- 
nicus. In Strix Jlammea of North America and Europe, a difference of size is 
superadded to a slight diversity of average colouring; and it would be easy to 
enumerate many more analogous examples. Had some of these, then, inhabited 
the same district, it is not unlikely that they would have intermixed; nor is it 
improbable that their mutual offspring would have been freely prolific, so that 
the race would have become effectually blended in time. It is true that many 
naturalists, in the event of animals of a mixed race provingto be mutually fertile, 
would hastily arrive at the conclusion that the parents were only varieties of the 
same 5 but the inference, I suspect, would be inconsistent with a presumed re¬ 
sult, that a series of degrees of fertility would become apparent, corresponding to 
those of physiological accordance, subsisting between the parents. Prohandum 
esf, however, and it is not much to the credit of the present advanced state of 
Zoology, that more experiments have not been instituted to decide this funda¬ 
mental question. 
It has always appeared to me, that the extreme irregularity in the amount of 
resemblance which obtains throughout the species of every group, the utter ab¬ 
sence of any approach to uniformity, in this particular—many species,,^as above 
shewn, approximating each other so closely, that it is not only difficult, but 
seemingly even impossible (in numerous instances) to know them apart—is 
utterly irreconcileable with, and therefore of itself subversive of, any doctrine 
which contends for, a rigid system of arrangement, such as the theo>ry espoused by 
Mr. SwAiNSON, wherein every separate species, as well as natural group, of each 
degree of value, is held to be a component of a regular quinary circle; a notion 
which I conceive to require a precisely:even amount of variation between^bTery 
distinct species and correspehideht' ^Oiip, the palpable non-existen^«:^^it^eM4t^ 
is useless to attempt to explain upon Ihn'easy principle of our partial acquaint^' 
ance with original forms, seeing that the progress of discovery has only tended to 
render more irregular the several divisions, and has increased the number of 
anomalies in full proportion to that of the new species which it has brought under 
review. I shall revert to this subject presently. 
The Fitchet Weasel is much more common within a circuit of ten miles from 
the metropolis than would be anticipated in so populous a neighbourhood. As 
we advance further than this into the county of Surrey, it becomes much more 
rare, and the Ermine Weasel considerably more abundant, a fact of which I am 
positive, but which I am at present unable to explain, unless it be that it gives 
the preference to furzy districts. It is called in some places the “ furze-cat.” I 
have been credibly informed of an instance of a man seizing and pulling forth 
