Darwin, and After Darwin, Volume 2 of 3: Post-Darwinian Questions: Heredity and UtilityRomanes, George John
Science
Darwin, and After Darwin, Volume 2 of 3: Post-Darwinian Questions: Heredity and Utility
Romanes, George John
Evolution (Biology); Heredity
[102] In the next paragraph Mr. Wallace says that the appendages in
question "are apparently of the same nature as the 'sports'
that arise in our domesticated productions, but which, as Mr.
Darwin says, without the aid of selection would soon
disappear." But I cannot find that Mr. Darwin has made any
such statement: what he does say is, that whether or not a
useless peculiarity will soon disappear without the aid of
selection depends upon the nature of the causes which produce
it. If these causes are of a merely transitory nature, the
peculiarity will also be transitory; but if the causes be
constant, so will be the result. Again, the point to be
noticed about this "sport" is, that, unlike what is usually
understood by a "sport," it affects a whole race or breed, is
transmitted by sexual propagation, and has already attained so
definite a size and structure, that it can only be reasonably
accounted for by supposing the continued operation of _some
constant_ cause. This cause can scarcely be correlation of
growth, since closely similar appendages are often seen in so
different an animal as a goat. Here, also, they run in breeds
or strains, are strongly inherited, and more "constant," as
well as more "symmetrical" than they are in pigs. This, at all
events, is the account I have received of them from
goat-breeders in Switzerland.
If, however, even this should be denied, what will be said of the second
case, that of the niata cattle?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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