So with Dogs in their habits and instincts.It is a physiological peculiarity which leads the Greyhound to chase its prey by sight,--that enables the Beagle to track it by the scent,--that impels the Terrier to its rat-hunting propensity,--and that leads the Retriever to its habit of retrieving.These habits and instincts are all the results of physiological differences and peculiarities, which have been developed from a common stock, at least there is every reason to believe so.But it is a most singular circumstance, that while you may run through almost the whole series of physiological processes, without finding a check to your argument, you come at last to a point where you do find a check, and that is in the reproductive processes.For there is a most singular circumstance in respect to natural species--at least about some of them--and it would be sufficient for the purposes of this argument if it were true of only one of them, but there is, in fact, a great number of such cases--and that is, that, similar as they may appear to be to mere races or breeds, they present a marked peculiarity in the reproductive process.If you breed from the male and female of the same race, you of course have offspring of the like kind, and if you make the offspring breed together, you obtain the same result, and if you breed from these again, you will still have the same kind of offspring;there is no check.But if you take members of two distinct species, however similar they may be to each other and make them breed together, you will find a check, with some modifications and exceptions, however, which I shall speak of presently.If you cross two such species with each other, then,--although you may get offspring in the case of the first cross, yet, if you attempt to breed from the products of that crossing, which are what are called HYBRIDS--that is, if you couple a male and a female hybrid--then the result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will get no offspring at all; there will be no result whatsoever.
The reason of this is quite obvious in some cases; the male hybrids, although possessing all the external appearances and characteristics of perfect animals, are physiologically imperfect and deficient in the structural parts of the reproductive elements necessary to generation.
It is said to be invariably the case with the male mule, the cross between the Ass and the Mare; and hence it is, that, although crossing the Horse with the Ass is easy enough, and is constantly done, as far as I am aware, if you take two mules, a male and a female, and endeavour to breed from them, you get no offspring whatever; no generation will take place.This is what is called the sterility of the hybrids between two distinct species.
You see that this is a very extraordinary circumstance; one does not see why it should be.The common teleological explanation is, that it is to prevent the impurity of the blood resulting from the crossing of one species with another, but you see it does not in reality do anything of the kind.There is nothing in this fact that hybrids cannot breed with each other, to establish such a theory; there is nothing to prevent the Horse breeding with the Ass, or the Ass with the Horse.So that this explanation breaks down, as a great many explanations of this kind do, that are only founded on mere assumptions.
Thus you see that there is a great difference between "mongrels," which are crosses between distinct races, and "hybrids," which are crosses between distinct species.The mongrels are, so far as we know, fertile with one another.But between species, in many cases, you cannot succeed in obtaining even the first cross: at any rate it is quite certain that the hybrids are often absolutely infertile one with another.
Here is a feature, then, great or small as it may be, which distinguishes natural species of animals.Can we find any approximation to this in the different races known to be produced by selective breeding from a common stock? Up to the present time the answer to that question is absolutely a negative one.As far as we know at present, there is nothing approximating to this check.In crossing the breeds between the Fantail and the Pouter, the Carrier and the Tumbler, or any other variety or race you may name--so far as we know at present--there is no difficulty in breeding together the mongrels.Take the Carrier and the Fantail, for instance, and let them represent the Horse and the Ass in the case of distinct species; then you have, as the result of their breeding, the Carrier-Fantail mongrel,--we will say the male and female mongrel,--and, as far as we know, these two when crossed would not be less fertile than the original cross, or than Carrier with Carrier.Here, you see, is a physiological contrast between the races produced by selective modification and natural species.I shall inquire into the value of this fact, and of some modifying circumstances by and by; for the present I merely put it broadly before you.
But while considering this question of the limitations of species, a word must be said about what is called RECURRENCE--the tendency of races which have been developed by selective breeding from varieties to return to their primitive type.This is supposed by many to put an absolute limit to the extent of selective and all other variations.
