As a general rule, the extent to which an offspring differs from its parent is slight enough; but, occasionally, the amount of difference is much more strongly marked, and then the divergent offspring receives the name of a Variety.  Multitudes, of what there is every reason to believe are such varieties, are known, but the origin of very few has been accurately recorded, and of these we will select two as more especially illustrative of the main features of variation.  The first of them is that of the “Ancon,” or “Otter” sheep, of which a careful account is given by Colonel David Humphreys, F.R.S., in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1813.  It appears that one Seth Wright, the proprietor of a farm on the banks of the Charles River, in Massachusetts, possessed a flock of fifteen ewes and a ram of the ordinary kind.  In the year 1791, one of the ewes presented her owner with a male lamb, differing, for no assignable reason, from its parents by a proportionally long body and short bandy legs, whence it was unable to emulate its relatives in those sportive leaps over the neighbours’ fences, in which they were in the habit of indulging, much to the good farmer’s vexation.

The second case is that detailed by a no less unexceptionable authority than Reaumur in his “Art de faire eclore les Poulets.”  A Maltese couple, named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were constructed upon the ordinary human model, had born to them a son, Gratio, who possessed six perfectly moveable fingers on each hand and six toes, not quite so well formed, on each foot.  No cause could be assigned for the appearance of this unusual variety of the human species.

Two circumstances are well worthy of remark in both these cases.  In each, the variety appears to have arisen in full force, and, as it were, per saltum; a wide and definite difference appearing, at once, between the Ancon ram and the ordinary sheep; between the six-fingered and six-toed Gratio Kelleia and ordinary men.  In neither case is it possible to point out any obvious reason for the appearance of the variety.  Doubtless there were determining causes for these as for all other phaenomena; but they do not appear, and we can be tolerably certain that what are ordinarily understood as changes in physical conditions, as in climate, in food, or the like, did not take place and had nothing to do with the matter.  It was no case of what is commonly called adaptation to circumstances; but, to use a conveniently erroneous phrase, the variations arose spontaneously.  The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their favourite will-o’-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright’s ram or the hexadactyle members of Gratio Kelleia.