With our true domestic animals, on the other hand, fertility is perfect, and is very little affected by changed conditions. Thus, we see the common fowl, a native of tropical India, living and multiplying in almost every part of the world; and the same is the case with our cattle, sheep, and goats, our dogs and horses, and especially with domestic pigeons. It therefore seems probable, that this facility for breeding under changed conditions was an original property of the species which man has domesticated—a property which, more than any other, enabled him to domesticate them. Yet, even with these, there is evidence that great changes of conditions affect the fertility. In the hot valleys of the Andes sheep are less fertile; while geese taken to the high plateau of Bogota were at first almost sterile, but after some generations recovered their fertility. These and many other facts seem to show that, with the majority of animals, even a slight change of conditions may produce infertility or sterility; and also that after a time, when the animal has become thoroughly acclimatised, as it were, to the new conditions, the infertility is in some cases diminished or altogether ceases. It is stated by Bechstein that the canary was long infertile, and it is only of late years that good breeding birds have become common; but in this case no doubt selection has aided the change.
As showing that these phenomena depend on deep-seated causes and are of a very general nature, it is interesting to note that they occur also in the vegetable kingdom. Allowing for all the circumstances which are known to prevent the production of seed, such as too great luxuriance of foliage, too little or too much heat, or the absence of insects to cross-fertilise the flowers, Mr. Darwin shows that many species which grow and flower with us, apparently in perfect health, yet never produce seed. Other plants are affected by very slight changes of conditions, producing seed freely in one soil and not in another, though apparently growing equally well in both; while, in some cases, a difference of position even in the same garden produces a similar result.[51]
Reciprocal Crosses.
Another indication of the extreme delicacy of the adjustment between the sexes, which is necessary to produce fertility, is afforded by the behaviour of many species and varieties when reciprocally crossed. This will be best illustrated by a few of the examples furnished us by Mr. Darwin. The two distinct species of plants, Mirabilis jalapa and M. longiflora, can be easily crossed, and will produce healthy and fertile hybrids when the pollen of the latter is applied to the stigma of the former plant. But the same experimenter, Kölreuter, tried in vain, more than two hundred times during eight years, to cross them by applying the pollen of M. jalapa to the stigma of M. longiflora. In other cases two plants are so closely allied that some botanists class them as varieties (as with Matthiola annua and M. glabra), and yet there is the same great difference in the result when they are reciprocally crossed.
Individual Differences in respect to Cross-Fertilisation.
A still more remarkable illustration of the delicate balance of organisation needful for reproduction, is afforded by the individual differences of animals and plants, as regards both their power of intercrossing with other individuals or other species, and the fertility of the offspring thus produced. Among domestic animals, Darwin states that it is by no means rare to find certain males and females which will not breed together, though both are known to be perfectly fertile with other males and females. Cases of this kind have occurred among horses, cattle, pigs, dogs, and pigeons; and the experiment has been tried so frequently that there can be no doubt of the fact. Professor G.J. Romanes states that he has a number of additional cases of this individual incompatibility, or of absolute sterility, between two individuals, each of which is perfectly fertile with other individuals.
During the numerous experiments that have been made on the hybridisation of plants similar peculiarities have been noticed, some individuals being capable, others incapable, of being crossed with a distinct species. The same individual peculiarities are found in varieties, species, and genera. Kölreuter crossed five varieties of the common tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) with a distinct species, Nicotiana glutinosa, and they all yielded very sterile hybrids; but those raised from one variety were less sterile, in all the experiments, than the hybrids from the four other varieties. Again, most of the species of the genus Nicotiana have been crossed, and freely produce hybrids; but one species, N. acuminata, not particularly distinct from the others, could neither fertilise, nor be fertilised by, any of the eight other species experimented on. Among genera we find some—such as Hippeastrum, Crinum, Calceolaria, Dianthus—almost all the species of which will fertilise other species and produce hybrid offspring; while other allied genera, as Zephyranthes and Silene, notwithstanding the most persevering efforts, have not produced a single hybrid even between the most closely allied species.
Dimorphism and Trimorphism.
Peculiarities in the reproductive system affecting individuals of the same species reach their maximum in what are called heterostyled, or dimorphic and trimorphic flowers, the phenomena presented by which form one of the most remarkable of Mr. Darwin's many discoveries. Our common cowslip and primrose, as well as many other species of the genus Primula, have two kinds of flowers in about equal proportions. In one kind the stamens are short, being situated about the middle of the tube of the corolla, while the style is long, the globular stigma appearing just in the centre of the open flower. In the other kind the stamens are long, appearing in the centre or throat of the flower, while the style is short, the stigma being situated halfway down the tube at the same level as the stamens in the other form. These two forms have long been known to florists as the "pin-eyed" and the "thrum-eyed," but they are called by Darwin the long-styled and short-styled forms (see woodcut).