The Foundations of the Origin of Species Part 9

When once two or more races are formed, or if more than one race, or species fertile _inter se_, originally existed in a wild state, their crossing becomes a most copious source of new races{202}. When two well-marked races are crossed the offspring in the first generation take more or less after either parent or are quite intermediate between them, or rarely a.s.sume characters in some degree new. In the second and several succeeding generations, the offspring are generally found to vary exceedingly, one compared with another, and many revert nearly to their ancestral forms. This greater variability in succeeding generations seems a.n.a.logous to the breaking or variability of organic beings after having been bred for some generations under domestication{203}. So marked is this variability in cross-bred descendants, that Pallas and some other naturalists have supposed that all variation is due to an original cross; but I conceive that the history of the potato, Dahlia, Scotch Rose, the guinea-pig, and of many trees in this country, where only one species of the genus exists, clearly shows that a species may vary where there can have been no crossing. Owing to this variability and tendency to reversion in cross-bred beings, much careful selection is requisite to make intermediate or new permanent races: nevertheless crossing has been a most powerful engine, especially with plants, where means of propagation exist by which the cross-bred varieties can be secured without incurring the risk of fresh variation from seminal propagation: with animals the most skilful agriculturalists now greatly prefer careful selection from a well-established breed, rather than from uncertain cross-bred stocks.

{202} The effects of crossing is much more strongly stated here than in the _Origin_. See Ed. i. p. 20, vi. p. 23, where indeed the opposite point of view is given. His change of opinion may be due to his work on pigeons. The whole of the discussion on crossing corresponds to Chapter VIII of the _Origin_, Ed. i. rather than to anything in the earlier part of the book.

{203} The parallelism between the effects of a cross and the effects of conditions is given from a different point of view in the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 266, vi. p. 391. See the experimental evidence for this important principle in the author's work on _Cross and Self-Fertilisation_. Professor Bateson has suggested that the experiments should be repeated with gametically pure plants.

Although intermediate and new races may be formed by the mingling of others, yet if the two races are allowed to mingle quite freely, so that none of either parent race remain pure, then, especially if the parent races are not widely different, they will slowly blend together, and the two races will be destroyed, and one mongrel race left in its place.

This will of course happen in a shorter time, if one of the parent races exists in greater number than the other. We see the effect of this mingling, in the manner in which the aboriginal breeds of dogs and pigs in the Oceanic Islands and the many breeds of our domestic animals introduced into S. America, have all been lost and absorbed in a mongrel race. It is probably owing to the freedom of crossing, that, in uncivilised countries, where inclosures do not exist, we seldom meet with more than one race of a species: it is only in enclosed countries, where the inhabitants do not migrate, and have conveniences for separating the several kinds of domestic animals, that we meet with a mult.i.tude of races. Even in civilised countries, want of care for a few years has been found to destroy the good results of far longer periods of selection and separation.

This power of crossing will affect the races of all _terrestrial_ animals; for all terrestrial animals require for their reproduction the union of two individuals. Amongst plants, races will not cross and blend together with so much freedom as in terrestrial animals; but this crossing takes place through various curious contrivances to a surprising extent. In fact such contrivances exist in so very many hermaphrodite flowers by which an occasional cross may take place, that I cannot avoid suspecting (with Mr Knight) that the reproductive action requires, at _intervals_, the concurrence of distinct individuals{204}.

Most breeders of plants and animals are firmly convinced that benefit is derived from an occasional cross, not with another race, but with another family of the same race; and that, on the other hand, injurious consequences follow from long-continued close interbreeding in the same family. Of marine animals, many more, than was till lately believed, have their s.e.xes on separate individuals; and where they are hermaphrodite, there seems very generally to be means through the water of one individual occasionally impregnating another: if individual animals can singly propagate themselves for perpetuity, it is unaccountable that no terrestrial animal, where the means of observation are more obvious, should be in this predicament of singly perpetuating its kind. I conclude, then, that races of most animals and plants, when unconfined in the same country, would tend to blend together.

{204} The so-called Knight-Darwin Law is often misunderstood. See Goebel in _Darwin and Modern Science_, 1909, p. 419; also F.

Darwin, _Nature_, Oct. 27, 1898.

_Whether our domestic races have descended from one or more wild stocks._

Several naturalists, of whom Pallas{205} regarding animals, and Humboldt regarding certain plants, were the first, believe that the breeds of many of our domestic animals such as of the horse, pig, dog, sheep, pigeon, and poultry, and of our plants have descended from more than one aboriginal form. They leave it doubtful, whether such forms are to be considered wild races, or true species, whose offspring are fertile when crossed _inter se_. The main arguments for this view consist, firstly, of the great difference between such breeds, as the Race-and Cart-Horse, or the Greyhound and Bull-dog, and of our ignorance of the steps or stages through which these could have pa.s.sed from a common parent; and secondly that in the most ancient historical periods, breeds resembling some of those at present most different, existed in different countries.

The wolves of N. America and of Siberia are thought to be different species; and it has been remarked that the dogs belonging to the savages in these two countries resemble the wolves of the same country; and therefore that they have probably descended from two different wild stocks. In the same manner, these naturalists believe that the horse of Arabia and of Europe have probably descended from two wild stocks both apparently now extinct. I do not think the a.s.sumed fertility of these wild stocks any very great difficulty on this view; for although in animals the offspring of most cross-bred species are infertile, it is not always remembered that the experiment is very seldom fairly tried, except when two near species _both_ breed freely (which does not readily happen, as we shall hereafter see) when under the dominion of man.

Moreover in the case of the China{206} and common goose, the canary and siskin, the hybrids breed freely; in other cases the offspring from hybrids crossed with either pure parent are fertile, as is practically taken advantage of with the yak and cow; as far as the a.n.a.logy of plants serves, it is impossible to deny that some species are quite fertile _inter se_; but to this subject we shall recur.

{205} Pallas' theory is discussed in the _Origin_, Ed. i. pp. 253, 254, vi. p. 374.

{206} See Darwin's paper on the fertility of hybrids from the common and Chinese goose in _Nature_, Jan. 1, 1880.

On the other hand, the upholders of the view that the several breeds of dogs, horses, &c., &c., have descended each from one stock, may aver that their view removes all _difficulty about fertility_, and that the main argument from the high antiquity of different breeds, somewhat similar to the present breeds, is worth little without knowing the date of the domestication of such animals, which is far from being the case.

They may also with more weight aver that, knowing that organic beings under domestication do vary in some degree, the argument from the great difference between certain breeds is worth nothing, without we know the limits of variation during a long course of time, which is far from the case. They may argue that almost every county in England, and in many districts of other countries, for instance in India, there are slightly different breeds of the domestic animals; and that it is opposed to all that we know of the distribution of wild animals to suppose that these have descended from so many different wild races or species: if so, they may argue, is it not probable that countries quite separate and exposed to different climates would have breeds not slightly, but considerably, different? Taking the most favourable case, on both sides, namely that of the dog; they might urge that such breeds as the bull-dog and turnspit have been reared by man, from the ascertained fact that strictly a.n.a.logous breeds (namely the Niata ox and Ancon sheep) in other quadrupeds have thus originated. Again they may say, seeing what training and careful selection has effected for the greyhound, and seeing how absolutely unfit the Italian greyhound is to maintain itself in a state of nature, is it not probable that at least all greyhounds,--from the rough deerhound, the smooth Persian, the common English, to the Italian,--have descended from one stock{207}? If so, is it so improbable that the deerhound and long-legged shepherd dog have so descended? If we admit this, and give up the bull-dog, we can hardly dispute the probable common descent of the other breeds.

{207} _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 19, vi. p. 22.

The evidence is so conjectural and balanced on both sides that at present I conceive that no one can decide: for my own part, I lean to the probability of most of our domestic animals having descended from more than one wild stock; though from the arguments last advanced and from reflecting on the slow though inevitable effect of different races of mankind, under different circ.u.mstances, saving the lives of and therefore selecting the individuals most useful to them, I cannot doubt but that one cla.s.s of naturalists have much overrated the probable number of the aboriginal wild stocks. As far as we admit the difference of our races due to the differences of their original stocks, so much must we give up of the amount of variation produced under domestication. But this appears to me unimportant, for we certainly know in some few cases, for instance in the Dahlia, and potato, and rabbit, that a great number of varieties have proceeded from one stock; and, in many of our domestic races, we know that man, by slowly selecting and by taking advantage of sudden sports, has considerably modified old races and produced new ones. Whether we consider our races as the descendants of one or several wild stocks, we are in far the greater number of cases equally ignorant what these stocks were.

_Limits to Variation in degree and kind._

Man's power in making races deends, in the first instance, on the stock on which he works being variable; but his labours are modified and limited, as we have seen, by the direct effects of the external conditions,--by the deficient or imperfect hereditariness of new peculiarities,--and by the tendency to continual variation and especially to reversion to ancestral forms. If the stock is not variable under domestication, of course he can do nothing; and it appears that species differ considerably in this tendency to variation, in the same way as even sub-varieties from the same variety differ greatly in this respect, and transmit to their offspring this difference in tendency.

Whether the absence of a tendency to vary is an unalterable quality in certain species, or depends on some deficient condition of the particular state of domestication to which they are exposed, there is no evidence. When the organization is rendered variable, or plastic, as I have expressed it, under domestication, different parts of the frame vary more or less in different species: thus in the breeds of cattle it has been remarked that the horns are the most constant or least variable character, for these often remain constant, whilst the colour, size, proportions of the body, tendency to fatten &c., vary; in sheep, I believe, the horns are much more variable. As a general rule the less important parts of the organization seem to vary most, but I think there is sufficient evidence that every part occasionally varies in a slight degree. Even when man has the primary requisite variability he is necessarily checked by the health and life of the stock he is working on: thus he has already made pigeons with such small beaks that they can hardly eat and will not rear their own young; he has made families of sheep with so strong a tendency to early maturity and to fatten, that in certain pastures they cannot live from their extreme liability to inflammation; he has made (_i.e._ selected) sub-varieties of plants with a tendency to such early growth that they are frequently killed by the spring frosts; he has made a breed of cows having calves with such large hinder quarters that they are born with great difficulty, often to the death of their mothers{208}; the breeders were compelled to remedy this by the selection of a breeding stock with smaller hinder quarters; in such a case, however, it is possible by long patience and great loss, a remedy might have been found in selecting cows capable of giving birth to calves with large hinder quarters, for in human kind there

{208} _Var. under Dom._, Ed. ii. vol. II. p. 211.

{209} This discussion corresponds to the _Origin_, Ed. i. pp. 11 and 143, vi. pp. 13 and 177.

_In what consists Domestication._

In this chapter we have treated of variation under domestication, and it now remains to consider in what does this power of domestication consist{210}, a subject of considerable difficulty. Observing that organic beings of almost every cla.s.s, in all climates, countries, and times, have varied when long bred under domestication, we must conclude that the influence is of some very general nature{211}. Mr Knight alone, as far as I know, has tried to define it; he believes it consists of an excess of food, together with transport to a more genial climate, or protection from its severities. I think we cannot admit this latter proposition, for we know how many vegetable products, aborigines of this country, here vary, when cultivated without any protection from the weather; and some of our variable trees, as apricots, peaches, have undoubtedly been derived from a more genial climate. There appears to be much more truth in the doctrine of excess of food being the cause, though I much doubt whether this is the sole cause, although it may well be requisite for the kind of variation desired by man, namely increase of size and vigour. No doubt horticulturalists, when they wish to raise new seedlings, often pluck off all the flower-buds, except a few, or remove the whole during one season, so that a great stock of nutriment may be thrown into the flowers which are to seed. When plants are transported from high-lands, forests, marshes, heaths, into our gardens and greenhouses, there must be a considerable change of food, but it would be hard to prove that there was in every case an excess of the kind proper to the plant. If it be an excess of food, compared with that which the being obtained in its natural state{212}, the effects continue for an improbably long time; during how many ages has wheat been cultivated, and cattle and sheep reclaimed, and we cannot suppose their _amount_ of food has gone on increasing, nevertheless these are amongst the most variable of our domestic productions. It has been remarked (Marshall) that some of the most highly kept breeds of sheep and cattle are truer or less variable than the straggling animals of the poor, which subsist on commons, and pick up a bare subsistence{213}. In the case of forest-trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem simply to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence. It appears to me that the power of domestication resolves itself into the acc.u.mulated effects of a change of all or some of the natural conditions of the life of the species, often a.s.sociated with excess of food. These conditions moreover, I may add, can seldom remain, owing to the mutability of the affairs, habits, migrations, and knowledge of man, for very long periods the same. I am the more inclined to come to this conclusion from finding, as we shall hereafter show, that changes of the natural conditions of existence seem peculiarly to affect the action of the reproductive system{214}. As we see that hybrids and mongrels, after the first generation, are apt to vary much, we may at least conclude that variability does not altogether depend on excess of food.

{210} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 7, vi. p. 7.

{211} "Isidore G. St Hilaire insists that breeding in captivity essential element. Schleiden on alkalies.

What is it in domestication which causes variation?"

{212} "It appears that slight changes of condition

{213} In the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 41, vi. p. 46 the question is differently treated; it is pointed out that a large stock of individuals gives a better chance of available variations occurring. Darwin quotes from Marshall that sheep in small lots can never be improved. This comes from Marshall's _Review of the Reports to the Board of Agriculture_, 1808, p. 406. In this Essay the name Marshall occurs in the margin. Probably this refers to _loc. cit._ p. 200, where unshepherded sheep in many parts of England are said to be similar owing to mixed breeding not being avoided.

{214} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 8, vi. p. 8.

After these views, it may be asked how it comes that certain animals and plants, which have been domesticated for a considerable length of time, and transported from very different conditions of existence, have not varied much, or scarcely at all; for instance, the a.s.s, peac.o.c.k, guinea-fowl, asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke{215}. I have already said that probably different species, like different sub-varieties, possess different degrees of tendency to vary; but I am inclined to attribute in these cases the want of numerous races less to want of variability than to selection not having been practised on them. No one will take the pains to select without some corresponding object, either of use or amus.e.m.e.nt; the individuals raised must be tolerably numerous, and not so precious, but that he may freely destroy those not answering to his wishes. If guinea-fowls or peac.o.c.ks{216} became "fancy" birds, I cannot doubt that after some generations several breeds would be raised. a.s.ses have not been worked on from mere neglect; but they differ in _some_ degree in different countries. The insensible selection, due to different races of mankind preserving those individuals most useful to them in their different circ.u.mstances, will apply only to the oldest and most widely domesticated animals. In the case of plants, we must put entirely out of the case those exclusively (or almost so) propagated by cuttings, layers or tubers, such as the Jerusalem artichoke and laurel; and if we put on one side plants of little ornament or use, and those which are used at so early a period of their growth that no especial characters signify, as asparagus{217} and seakale, I can think of none long cultivated which have not varied. In no case ought we to expect to find as much variation in a race when it alone has been formed, as when several have been formed, for their crossing and recrossing will greatly increase their variability.

{215} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 42, vi. p. 48.

{216} There are white peac.o.c.ks.

{217} There are varieties of asparagus.

_Summary of first Chapter._

To sum up this chapter. Races are made under domestication: 1st, by the direct effects of the external conditions to which the species is exposed: 2nd, by the indirect effects of the exposure to new conditions, often aided by excess of food, rendering the organization plastic, and by man's selecting and separately breeding certain individuals, or introducing to his stock selected males, or often preserving with care the life of the individuals best adapted to his purposes: 3rd, by crossing and recrossing races already made, and selecting their offspring. After some generations man may relax his care in selection: for the tendency to vary and to revert to ancestral forms will decrease, so that he will have only occasionally to remove or destroy one of the yearly offspring which departs from its type. Ultimately, with a large stock, the effects of free crossing would keep, even without this care, his breed true. By these means man can produce infinitely numerous races, curiously adapted to ends, both most important and most frivolous; at the same time that the effects of the surrounding conditions, the laws of inheritance, of growth, and of variation, will modify and limit his labours.

CHAPTER II

ON THE VARIATION OF ORGANIC BEINGS IN A WILD STATE; ON THE NATURAL MEANS OF SELECTION; AND ON THE COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC RACES AND TRUE SPECIES

Having treated of variation under domestication, we now come to it in a _state of nature_.

Most organic beings in a state of nature vary exceedingly little{218}: I put out of the case variations (as stunted plants &c., and sea-sh.e.l.ls in brackish water{219}) which are directly the effect of external agencies and which we do not _know are in the breed_{220}, or are _hereditary_.

The amount of hereditary variation is very difficult to ascertain, because naturalists (partly from the want of knowledge, and partly from the inherent difficulty of the subject) do not all agree whether certain forms are species or races{221}. Some strongly marked races of plants, comparable with the decided sports of horticulturalists, undoubtedly exist in a state of nature, as is actually known by experiment, for instance in the primrose and cowslip{222}, in two so-called species of dandelion, in two of foxglove{223}, and I believe in some pines. Lamarck has observed that, as long as we confine our attention to one limited country, there is seldom much difficulty in deciding what forms to call species and what varieties; and that it is when collections flow in from all parts of the world that naturalists often feel at a loss to decide the limit of variation. Undoubtedly so it is, yet amongst British plants (and I may add land sh.e.l.ls), which are probably better known than any in the world, the best naturalists differ very greatly in the relative proportions of what they call species and what varieties. In many genera of insects, and sh.e.l.ls, and plants, it seems almost hopeless to establish which are which. In the higher cla.s.ses there are less doubts; though we find considerable difficulty in ascertaining what deserve to be called species amongst foxes and wolves, and in some birds, for instance in the case of the white barn-owl. When specimens are brought from different parts of the world, how often do naturalists dispute this same question, as I found with respect to the birds brought from the Galapagos islands. Yarrell has remarked that the individuals of the same undoubted species of birds, from Europe and N. America, usually present slight, indefinable though perceptible differences. The recognition indeed of one animal by another of its kind seems to imply some difference. The disposition of wild animals undoubtedly differs. The variation, such as it is, chiefly affects the same parts in wild organisms as in domestic breeds; for instance, the size, colour, and the external and less important parts. In many species the variability of certain organs or qualities is even stated as one of the specific characters: thus, in plants, colour, size, hairiness, the number of the stamens and pistils, and even their presence, the form of the leaves; the size and form of the mandibles of the males of some insects; the length and curvature of the beak in some birds (as in Opetiorynchus) are variable characters in some species and quite fixed in others. I do not perceive that any just distinction can be drawn between this recognised variability of certain parts in many species and the more general variability of the whole frame in domestic races.

{218} In Chapter II of the first edition of the _Origin_ Darwin insists rather on the presence of variability in a state of nature; see, for instance, p. 45, Ed. vi. p. 53, "I am convinced that the most experienced naturalist would be surprised at the number of the cases of variability ... which he could collect on good authority, as I have collected, during a course of years."

{219} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 44, vi. p. 52.

{220} Here discuss _what is a species_, sterility can most rarely be told when crossed.--Descent from common stock.

{221} Give only rule: chain of intermediate forms, and _a.n.a.logy_; this important. Every Naturalist at first when he gets hold of new variable type is _quite puzzled_ to know what to think species and what variations.

{222} The author had not at this time the knowledge of the meaning of dimorphism.

{223} Compare feathered heads in very different birds with spines in Echidna and Hedgehog.

Plants under very different climate not varying. Digitalis shows jumps in variation, like Laburnum and Orchis case--in fact hostile cases. Variability of s.e.xual characters alike in domestic and wild.

Although the amount of variation be exceedingly small in most organic beings in a state of nature, and probably quite wanting (as far as our senses serve) in the majority of cases; yet considering how many animals and plants, taken by mankind from different quarters of the world for the most diverse purposes, have varied under domestication in every country and in every age, I think we may safely conclude that all organic beings with few exceptions, if capable of being domesticated and bred for long periods, would vary. Domestication seems to resolve itself into a change from the natural conditions of the species [generally perhaps including an increase of food]; if this be so, organisms in a state of nature must _occasionally_, in the course of ages, be exposed to a.n.a.logous influences; for geology clearly shows that many places must, in the course of time, become exposed to the widest range of climatic and other influences; and if such places be isolated, so that new and better adapted organic beings cannot freely emigrate, the old inhabitants will be exposed to new influences, probably far more varied, than man applies under the form of domestication. Although every species no doubt will soon breed up to the full number which the country will support, yet it is easy to conceive that, on an average, some species may receive an increase of food; for the times of dearth may be short, yet enough to kill, and recurrent only at long intervals. All such changes of conditions from geological causes would be exceedingly slow; what effect the slowness might have we are ignorant; under domestication it appears that the effects of change of conditions acc.u.mulate, and then break out. Whatever might be the result of these slow geological changes, we may feel sure, from the means of dissemination common in a lesser or greater degree to every organism taken conjointly with the changes of geology, which are steadily (and sometimes suddenly, as when an isthmus at last separates) in progress, that occasionally organisms must suddenly be introduced into new regions, where, if the conditions of existence are not so foreign as to cause its extermination, it will often be propagated under circ.u.mstances still more closely a.n.a.logous to those of domestication; and therefore we expect will evince a tendency to vary. It appears to me quite _inexplicable_ if this has never happened; but it can happen very rarely. Let us then suppose that an organism by some chance (which might be hardly repeated in 1000 years) arrives at a modern volcanic island in process of formation and not fully stocked with the most appropriate organisms; the new organism might readily gain a footing, although the external conditions were considerably different from its native ones. The effect of this we might expect would influence in some small degree the size, colour, nature of covering &c., and from inexplicable influences even special parts and organs of the body. But we might further (and is far more important) expect that the reproductive system would be affected, as under domesticity, and the structure of the offspring rendered in some degree plastic. Hence almost every part of the body would tend to vary from the typical form in slight degrees, and in no determinate way, and therefore _without selection_ the free crossing of these small variations (together with the tendency to reversion to the original form) would constantly be counteracting this unsettling effect of the extraneous conditions on the reproductive system. Such, I conceive, would be the unimportant result without selection. And here I must observe that the foregoing remarks are equally applicable to that small and admitted amount of variation which has been observed in some organisms in a state of nature; as well as to the above hypothetical variation consequent on changes of condition.