412 LOTSY, CURRENT THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 
low down, during a phase when the differentiation between stem 
and leaf was still in its infancy. 
CHURCH takes a still more radical view; he puts the origin of the 
different phyla of plants as far back as the Flagellates, a view 
which would give special weight to the division of the Cormophytes 
in Polyciliatae and Biciliatae which I proposed many years ago. 
The assumption of original diversity is of course a polyphyletic 
one and such an assumption seems to me to be best in accor- 
dance with the present standpoint of palaeontology. 
The view here presented of course does not need to assume 
that every phylum, now existing, has had its own initial cytoplasm, 
because we know that among lower organisms fusion is not limited _ 
to the nuclei but affects the cytoplasm also, so that in a similar 
way as nuclear hybridisation has been the cause of diverse chro- 
mosome sets, cytoplasmic hybridisation may have multiplied the 
different kinds of cytoplasm, which have — so called spontane- 
ously — arisen. 
All this of course is speculation; I have mentioned it only 
because I have so frequently been asked to present my views on 
the ultimate consequences of my theory. | 
Having done this, I now beg leave to say something about the 
species-question. 
At the Toronto-meeting of this Association BATESON has said, 
that any day the origin of a species might be discovered. I flattered 
myself to have shown in the case of Antirrhinum rhinanthotdes 
that a linnean species can arise by hybridisation and I see no 
reason why such diverse races as are know among poultry, rabbits, 
dogs etc., which almost certainly owe their origin to hybridisation 
should not be considered as species. In the Origin (p. 16) DARWIN. 
himself says: „Altogether at least a score of pigeons might be 
chosen, which, if shown to an ornithologist, and he were told 
that they were wild birds, would certainly be ranked by him as 
well defined species. Moreover, I do not believe that any orni- 
thologist would in this case place the English carrier, the short 
faced tumbler, the runt, the barb, pouter, and fantail in the same 
genus; more especially as in each of these breeds several truly- 
inherited sub-breeds, or species, as he would call them, could be 
shown him.” 



