Chap. I. 
SELECTION BY MAN. 
29 
Ask, as I have asked, a celebrated raiser of Hereford 
cattle, whether his cattle might not have descended 
from long-horns, and he will laugh you to scorn. I 
have never met a pigeon, or poultry, or duck, or 
rabbit fancier, who was not fully convinced that each 
main breed was descended from a distinct species. Yan 
Mons, in his treatise on pears and apples, shows how 
utterly he disbeheves that the several sorts, for instance 
a Eibston-pippin or Codlin-apple, could ever have pro¬ 
ceeded from the seeds of the same tree. Innumerable 
other examples could be given. The explanation, I 
think, is simple: from long-continued study they are 
strongly impressed with the differences between the 
several races; and though they well know that each 
race varies slightly, for they win their prizes by select¬ 
ing such slight differences, yet they ignore all general 
arguments, and refuse to sum up in their minds slight 
differences accumulated during many successive genera¬ 
tions. May not those naturalists who, knowing far less 
of the laws of inheritance than does the breeder, and 
knowing no more than he does of the intermediate links 
in the long lines of descent, yet admit that many of our 
domestic races have descended from the same parents— 
may they not learn a lesson of caution, when they de¬ 
ride the idea of species in a state of nature being lineal 
descendants of other species ? 
Selection ,—Let us now briefly consider the steps by 
which domestic races have been produced, either from 
one or from several allied species. Some little effect may, 
perhaps, be attributed to the direct action of the external 
conditions of life, and some little to habit; but he would 
be a bold man who would account by such agencies for 
the differences of a dray and race horse, a greyhound 
and bloodhound, a carrier and tumbler pigeon. One of 
the most remarkable features in our domesticated races 
