[{73}] Lindley’s remark is quoted in the Origin, Ed. i. p. 9. Linnæus’ remark is to the effect that Alpine plants tend to be sterile under cultivation (see Var. under Dom., Ed. 2, ii. p. 147). In the same place the author speaks of peat-loving plants being sterile in our gardens,—no doubt the American bog-plants referred to above. On the following page (p. 148) the sterility of the lilac (Syringa persica and chinensis) is referred to.
[{74}] The author probably means that the increase in the petals is due to a greater food supply being available for them owing to sterility. See the discussion in Var. under Dom., Ed. 2, ii. p. 151. It must be noted that doubleness of the flower may exist without noticeable sterility.
[{75}] I have not come across this case in the author’s works.
[{76}] For the somewhat doubtful case of the cheetah (Felis jubata) see Var. under Dom., Ed. 2, ii. p. 133. I do not know to what fact “pig in India” refers.
[{77}] This sentence should run “on which depends their incapacity to breed in unnatural conditions.”
[{78}] This sentence ends in confusion: it should clearly close with the words “refused to breed” in place of the bracket and the present concluding phrase.
[{79}] The author doubtless refers to the change produced by the summation of variation by means of selection.
[{80}] The meaning of this sentence is made clear by a passage in the MS. of 1844:—“Until man selects two varieties from the same stock, adapted to two climates or to other different external conditions, and confines each rigidly for one or several thousand years to such conditions, always selecting the individuals best adapted to them, he cannot be said to have even commenced the experiment.” That is, the attempt to produce mutually sterile domestic breeds.
[{81}] This passage is to some extent a repetition of a previous one and may have been intended to replace an earlier sentence. I have thought it best to give both. In the Origin, Ed. i. p. 141, vi. p. 176, the author gives his opinion that the power of resisting diverse conditions, seen in man and his domestic animals, is an example “of a very common flexibility of constitution.”
[{82}] In the Origin, Ed. i. Chs. I. and V., the author does not admit reproduction, apart from environment, as being a cause of variation. With regard to the cumulative effect of new conditions there are many passages in the Origin, Ed. i. e.g. pp. 7, 12, vi. pp. 8, 14.