As Linnæus has compared the reindeer in number to ants, I may add that each ant knows its fellow of the same community. Several times I carried ants of the same species (Formica rufa) from one ant-hill to another, inhabited apparently by tens of thousands of ants; but the strangers were instantly detected and killed. I then put some ants taken from a very large nest into a bottle strongly perfumed with assafœtida, and after an interval of twenty-four hours returned them to their home; they were at first threatened by their fellows, but were soon recognised and allowed to pass. Hence each ant certainly recognised, independently of odour, its fellow; and if all the ants of the same community have not some countersign or watchword, they must present to each other’s senses some distinguishable character.
The dissimilarity of brothers or sisters of the same family, and of seedlings from the same capsule, may be in part accounted for by the unequal blending of the characters of the two parents, and by the more or less complete recovery through reversion of ancestral characters on either side; but we thus only push the difficulty further back in time, for what made the parents or their progenitors different? Hence the belief[[2]] that an innate tendency to vary exists, independently of external differences, seems at first sight probable. But even the seeds nurtured in the same capsule are not subjected to absolutely uniform conditions, as they draw their nourishment from different points; and we shall see in a future chapter that this difference sometimes suffices to affect the character of the future plant. The greater dissimilarity of the successive children of the same family in comparison with twins, which often resemble each other in external appearance, mental disposition, and constitution, in so extraordinary a manner, apparently proves that the state of the parents at the exact period of conception, or the nature of the subsequent embryonic development, has a direct and powerful influence on the character of the offspring. Nevertheless, when we reflect on the individual differences between organic beings in a state of nature, as shown by every wild animal knowing its mate; and when we reflect on the infinite diversity of the many varieties of our domesticated productions, we may well be inclined to exclaim, though falsely as I believe, that Variability must be looked at as an ultimate fact, necessarily contingent on reproduction.
Those authors who adopt this latter view would probably deny that each separate variation has its own proper exciting cause. Although we can seldom trace the precise relation between cause and effect, yet the considerations presently to be given lead to the conclusion that each modification must have its own distinct cause, and is not the result of what we blindly call accident. The following striking case has been communicated to me by Dr. William Ogle. Two girls, born as twins, and in all respects extremely alike, had their little fingers on both hands crooked; and in both children the second bicuspid tooth of the second dentition on the right side in the upper jaw was misplaced; for, instead of standing in a line with the others, it grew from the roof of the mouth behind the first bicuspid. Neither the parents nor any other members of the family were known to have exhibited any similar peculiarity; but a son of one of these girls had the same tooth similarly misplaced. Now, as both the girls were affected in exactly the same manner, the idea of accident is at once excluded: and we are compelled to admit that there must have existed some precise and sufficient cause which, if it had occurred a hundred times, would have given crooked fingers and misplaced bicuspid teeth to a hundred children. It is of course possible that this case may have been due to reversion to some long-forgotten progenitor, and this would much weaken the value of the argument. I have been led to think of the probability of reversion, from having been told by Mr. Galton of another case of twin girls born with their little fingers slightly crooked, which they inherited from their maternal grandmother.
We will now consider the general arguments, which appear to me to have great weight, in favour of the view that variations of all kinds and degrees are directly or indirectly caused by the conditions of life to which each being, and more especially its ancestors, have been exposed.
No one doubts that domesticated productions are more variable than organic beings which have never been removed from their natural conditions. Monstrosities graduate so insensibly into mere variations that it is impossible to separate them; and all those who have studied monstrosities believe that they are far commoner with domesticated than with wild animals and plants;[[3]] and in the case of plants, monstrosities would be equally noticeable in the natural as in the cultivated state. Under nature, the individuals of the same species are exposed to nearly uniform conditions, for they are rigorously kept to their proper places by a host of competing animals and plants; they have, also, long been habituated to their conditions of life; but it cannot be said that they are subject to quite uniform conditions, and they are liable to a certain amount of variation. The circumstances under which our domestic productions are reared are widely different: they are protected from competition; they have not only been removed from their natural conditions and often from their native land, but they are frequently carried from district to district, where they are treated differently, so that they rarely remain during any considerable length of time exposed to closely similar conditions. In conformity with this, all our domesticated productions, with the rarest exceptions, vary far more than natural species. The hive-bee, which feeds itself and follows in most respects its natural habits of life, is the least variable of all domesticated animals, and probably the goose is the next least variable; but even the goose varies more than almost any wild bird, so that it cannot be affiliated with perfect certainty to any natural species. Hardly a single plant can be named, which has long been cultivated and propagated by seed, that is not highly variable; common rye (Secale cereale) has afforded fewer and less marked varieties than almost any other cultivated plant;[[4]] but it may be doubted whether the variations of this, the least valuable of all our cereals, have been closely observed.
Bud-variation, which was fully discussed in a former chapter, shows us that variability may be quite independent of seminal reproduction, and likewise of reversion to long-lost ancestral characters. No one will maintain that the sudden appearance of a moss-rose on a Provence-rose is a return to a former state, for mossiness of the calyx has been observed in no natural species; the same argument is applicable to variegated and laciniated leaves; nor can the appearance of nectarines on peach-trees be accounted for on the principle of reversion. But bud-variations more immediately concern us, as they occur far more frequently on plants which have been highly cultivated during a length of time, than on other and less highly cultivated plants; and very few well-marked instances have been observed with plants growing under strictly natural conditions. I have given one instance of an ash-tree growing in a gentleman’s pleasure-grounds; and occasionally there may be seen, on beech and other trees, twigs leafing at a different period from the other branches. But our forest trees in England can hardly be considered as living under strictly natural conditions; the seedlings are raised and protected in nursery-grounds, and must often be transplanted into places where wild trees of the kind would not naturally grow. It would be esteemed a prodigy if a dog-rose growing in a hedge produced by bud-variation a moss-rose, or a wild bullace or wild cherry-tree yielded a branch bearing fruit of a different shape and colour from the ordinary fruit. The prodigy would be enhanced if these varying branches were found capable of propagation, not only by grafts, but sometimes by seed; yet analogous cases have occurred with many of our highly cultivated trees and herbs.
These several considerations alone render it probable that variability of every kind is directly or indirectly caused by changed conditions of life. Or, to put the case under another point of view, if it were possible to expose all the individuals of a species during many generations to absolutely uniform conditions of life, there would be no variability.
On the Nature of the Changes in the Conditions of Life which induce Variability.
From a remote period to the present day, under climates and circumstances as different as it is possible to conceive, organic beings of all kinds, when domesticated or cultivated, have varied. We see this with the many domestic races of quadrupeds and birds belonging to different orders, with goldfish and silkworms, with plants of many kinds, raised in various quarters of the world. In the deserts of northern Africa the date-palm has yielded thirty-eight varieties; in the fertile plains of India it is notorious how many varieties of rice and of a host of other plants exist; in a single Polynesian island, twenty-four varieties of the bread-fruit, the same number of the banana, and twenty-two varieties of the arum, are cultivated by the natives; the mulberry-tree in India and Europe has yielded many varieties serving as food for the silkworm; and in China sixty-three varieties of the bamboo are used for various domestic purposes.[[5]] These facts, and innumerable others which could be added, indicate that a change of almost any kind in the conditions of life suffices to cause variability—different changes acting on different organisms.
Andrew Knight[[6]] attributed the variation of both animals and plants to a more abundant supply of nourishment, or to a more favourable climate, than that natural to the species. A more genial climate, however, is far from necessary; the kidney-bean, which is often injured by our spring frosts, and peaches, which require the protection of a wall, have varied much in England, as has the orange-tree in northern Italy, where it is barely able to exist.[[7]] Nor can we overlook the fact, though not immediately connected with our present subject, that the plants and shells of the Arctic regions are eminently variable.[[8]] Moreover, it does not appear that a change of climate, whether more or less genial, is one of the most potent causes of variability; for in regard to plants Alph. De Candolle, in his ‘Géographie Botanique’ repeatedly shows that the native country of a plant, where in most cases it has been longest cultivated, is that where it has yielded the greatest number of varieties.