morbid love of whatever is distorted and warped from its natural shape and appearance, all sorts of changes have been brought about in this single Species.  A book of Chinese paintings showing the Golden Carp in its varieties represents some as short and stout, others long and slender,—­some with the ventral side swollen, others hunch-backed,—­some with the mouth greatly enlarged, while in others the caudal fin, which in the normal condition of the Species is placed vertically at the end of the tail and is forked like those of other Fishes, has become crested and arched, or is double, or crooked, or has swerved in some other way from its original pattern.  But in all these variations there is nothing which recalls the characteristic specific differences among the representatives of the Carp Family, which in their wild state are very monotonous in their appearance all the world over.

Were it appropriate to accumulate evidence here upon this subject, I could bring forward many more examples quite as striking as those above mentioned.  The various breeds of our domesticated Horses present the same kind of irregularities, and do not differ from each other in the same way as the wild Species differ from one another.  Or take the Genus Dog:  the differences between its wild Species do not correspond in the least with the differences observed among the domesticated ones.  Compare the differences between the various kinds of Jackals and Wolves with those that exist between the Bull-Dog and Greyhound, for instance, or between the St. Charles and the Terrier, or between the Esquimaux and the Newfoundland Dog.  I need hardly add that what is true of the Horses, the Cattle, the Dogs, is true also of the Donkey, the Goat, the Sheep, the Pig, the Cat, the Rabbit, the different kinds of barn-yard fowl,—­in short, of all those animals that are in domesticity the chosen companions of man.

In fact, all the variability among domesticated Species is due to the fostering care, or, in its more extravagant freaks, to the fancies of man, and it has never been observed in the wild Species, where, on the contrary, everything shows the closest adherence to the distinct, well-defined, and invariable limits of the Species.  It surely does not follow, that, because the Chinese can, under abnormal conditions, produce a variety of fantastic shapes in the Golden Carp, therefore water, or the physical conditions established in the water, can create a Fish, any more than it follows, that, because they can dwarf a tree, or alter its aspect by stunting its growth in one direction and forcing it in another, therefore the earth, or the physical conditions connected with their growth, can create a Pine, an Oak, a Birch, or a Maple.  I confess that in all the arguments derived from the phenomena of domestication, to prove that all animals owe their origin and diversity to the natural action of the conditions under which they live, the conclusion does not seem to me to follow logically from the premises.