Darwin on Species
[From the _Press_, April 11th, 1863.]
To the Editor of the _Press_.
Sir—Your correspondent “A. M.” is pertinacious on the subject of the bear
being changed into a whale, which I said Darwin contemplated as not
impossible. I did not take the trouble in any former letter to answer
him on that point, as his language was so intemperate. He has modified
his tone in his last letter, and really seems open to the conviction that
he may be the “careless” writer after all; and so on reflection I have
determined to give him the opportunity of doing me justice.
In his letter of February 21 he says: “I cannot sit by and see Darwin
misrepresented in such a scandalously slovenly manner. What Darwin does
say is ‘that SOMETIMES diversified and changed habits may be observed in
individuals of the same species; that is, that there are certain
eccentric animals as there are certain eccentric men. He adduces a few
instances, and winds up by saying that in North America the black bear
was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus
catching, ALMOST LIKE A WHALE, insects in the water.’ THIS, AND NOTHING
MORE, pp. 201, 202.”
Then follows a passage about my carelessness, which (he says) is hardly
to be reprehended in sufficiently strong terms, and he ends with saying:
“This is disgraceful.”
Now you may well suppose that I was a little puzzled at the seeming
audacity of a writer who should adopt this style, when the words which
follow his quotation from Darwin are (in the edition from which I quoted)
as follows: “Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects
were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in
the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered by
natural selection more and more aquatic in their structure and habits,
with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous
as a whale.”
Now this passage was a remarkable instance of the idea that I was
illustrating in the article on “Barrel-organs,” because Buffon in his
_Histoire Naturelle_ had conceived a theory of degeneracy (the exact
converse of Darwin’s theory of ascension) by which the bear might pass
into a seal, and that into a whale. Trusting now to the fairness of “A.
M.” I leave to him to say whether he has quoted from the same edition as
I have, and whether the additional words I have quoted are in his
edition, and if so whether he has not been guilty of a great injustice to
me; and if they are not in his edition, whether he has not been guilty of
great haste and “carelessness” in taking for granted that I have acted in
so “disgraceful” a manner.
I am, Sir, etc.,
“The Savoyard,” or player
on Barrel-organs.
(The paragraph in question has been the occasion of much discussion. The
only edition in our hands is the third, seventh thousand, which contains
the paragraph as quoted by “A. M.” We have heard that it is different in
earlier editions, but have not been able to find one. The difference
between “A. M.” and “The Savoyard” is clearly one of different editions.
Darwin appears to have been ashamed of the inconsequent inference
suggested, and to have withdrawn it.—Ed. the _Press_.)
Darwin on Species
[From the _Press_, 22nd June, 1863.]
To the Editor of the _Press_.
Sir—I extract the following from an article in the _Saturday Review_ of
January 10, 1863, on the vertebrated animals of the Zoological Gardens.
“As regards the ducks, for example, inter-breeding goes on to a very
great extent among nearly all the genera, which are well represented in
the collection. We think it unfortunate that the details of these
crosses have not hitherto been made public. The Zoological Society has
existed about thirty-five years, and we imagine that evidence must have
been accumulated almost enough to make or mar that part of Mr. Darwin’s
well-known argument which rests on what is known of the phenomena of
hybridism. The present list reveals only one fact bearing on the
subject, but that is a noteworthy one, for it completely overthrows the
commonly accepted theory that the mixed offspring of different species
are infertile _inter se_. At page 15 (of the list of vertebrated animals
living in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London, Longman and
Co., 1862) we find enumerated three examples of hybrids between two
perfectly distinct species, and even, according to modern classification,
between two distinct genera of ducks, for three or four generations.
There can be little doubt that a series of researches in this branch of
experimental physiology, which might be carried on at no great loss,
would place zoologists in a far better position with regard to a subject
which is one of the most interesting if not one of the most important in
natural history.”
I fear that both you and your readers will be dead sick of Darwin, but
the above is worthy of notice. My compliments to the “Savoyard.”
Your obedient servant,
May 17th.