Mr Scatliff, having “spotted” this point, looked about him for another bird having the peculiarity, with the object, if possible, of fixing the same in his strain. He discovered this point in a pigeon belonging to Mr Johnston of Hull, and purchased the bird for £20. But it died in the following spring without producing for Mr Scatliff a single young one. The next year Scatliff found that a bird belonging to a Mr Brannam had the required peculiarity and so purchased him for £20. But that cock, too, died before anything was bred from him. Nothing daunted, Scatliff found that another of Brannam’s cocks displayed the same peculiarity, so purchased him in 1899 for £15, but he also died before the year was out. Meanwhile Scatliff had, by mating up “Ladybird” with the most likely of his own cocks, succeeded in producing one or two young cocks with the desired point. By breeding these with their mother “Ladybird” and their offspring again with “Ladybird,” Scatliff eventually succeeded in breeding some turbits, both blacks and duns, with the required peculiarity fully developed, but not before he had spent a further sum of £55 on two other cocks, both of which died before they could be mated with the famous “Ladybird.” However, amid all his misfortunes, Scatliff informs us that he bought one bird, by name “Amazement,” which did assist him in fixing his strain. Thus Scatliff spent considerably over £100 in purchases, and took eight years fixing the peculiarity in question. Had “Ladybird” been a flower, the peculiarity could probably have been fixed in one generation by self-fertilisation. This furnishes an excellent example of the trouble which breeders will take, and the expense to which they will go in order to produce a desired result. Nevertheless, it appears to be the fashion for scientific men to decry the work of the breeder. Let us now pass on to consider the cases of mutations which are known to have occurred among animals. Mutations among Animals Some instances of great and sudden variation in domesticated animals have become classical, and been detailed in almost every work on evolution. These are, firstly, the celebrated hornless Paraguay cattle. This hornless breed, or rather the ancestor of the breed, arose quite suddenly. Many domestic horned breeds of animals, especially sheep and goats, throw off hornless sports. Were a hornless breed of buffalo found in nature, it would undoubtedly be ranked a new species, and the Wallaceians would doubtless exercise much ingenuity in explaining how natural selection had brought about the gradual disappearance of the horns; and palæontologists, being baffled in their search for intermediaries between the hornless species and their horned ancestors, would complain of the imperfection of the geological record.