One of these—the hybrid between the purple and the yellow species of
Lucerne which is known to botanists as _Medicago media_ is, writes De
Vries, “cultivated in some parts of Germany on a large scale, as it is
more productive than the ordinary lucerne.” Other examples of perfectly
fertile plant hybrids cited by De Vries are the crosses between _Anemone
magellanica_ and _A. sylvestris_, between _Salix alba_ and _Salix
pentandra_, between _Rhododendron hirsutum_ and _R. ferrugineum_.
He gives an instance of a hybrid—_Ægilops speltæformis_, which, though
fertile, is not so fertile as a normal species would be. It is worthy of
note that Burbank of California has obtained a hybrid between the
blackberry and the raspberry, which is not only fertile, but quite
popular as producing a novel fruit.
Sterile Plant Hybrids
De Vries does not cite nearly so many examples of sterile hybrids,
presumably because they are not so easy to find. He mentions the sterile
“Gordon’s currant,” which is considered to be a hybrid between the
Californian and the Missouri species. He also gives _Cytisus adami_ as an
absolutely sterile hybrid, this being a cross between two species of
Labernum—the common and the purple.
In the case of animals the known hybrids are so much less numerous that
we are able to furnish a list which may be taken as fairly exhaustive.
Fertile Mammalian Hybrids
Taking the mammals first, we find that, in addition to those cited by
Darwin, there are several recorded cases of crosses between well-defined
species which are fertile.
There is the hybrid between the brown bear and the polar bear, which is
perfectly fertile. In the London Zoological Gardens there is a specimen
of this hybrid, also one of this individual’s offspring by a pure polar
bear.
The stoat has been crossed with the domestic ferret, a descendant of the
polecat, a very distinct species; the resulting hybrids have nevertheless
proved fertile.
The bull American bison produces with the domestic cow hybrids known as
“cataloes,” which are fertile. The reverse cross of the domestic bull
with the bison cow does not, however, succeed at all, which reminds us of
what happens in the case of finch-hybrids.
Bird fanciers when crossing the canary with wild species of finch, almost
invariably use a hen canary as the female parent, because domesticated
female animals breed more readily than do captive wild ones.
The domestic yak breeds frequently in the Himalayas with the perfectly
distinct zebu or humped cow of India, and the hybrids are fertile. Yet
the zebu and the Indian buffalo, living constantly side by side in the
plains of India, never interbreed at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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