Men of science not infrequently charge the clergy with adhering to dogma in face of opposing facts; it seems to us that many of the apostles of science are in this respect worse offenders than the most orthodox of Churchmen.
The example of the mollusca of the Sandwich Islands is by no means a solitary one. D. Dewar cited some interesting cases in a paper recently read before the Royal Society of Arts (p. 103 of vol. lvii. of the Society’s Journal):
“The Indian robins present even greater difficulties to those who profess to pin their faith to the all-sufficiency of natural selection. Robins are found in nearly all parts of India, and fall into two species, the brown-backed (Thamnobia cambaiensis) and the black-backed Indian Robin (Thamnobia fulicata). The former occurs only in Northern India, and the latter is confined to the southern portion of the peninsula. The hen of each species is a sandy brown bird with a patch of brick-red feathers under the tail, so that we cannot tell by merely looking at a hen to which of the two species she belongs. The cock of the South Indian form is, in winter, a glossy black bird, with a white bar in the wing, and the characteristic red patch under the tail. The cock of the northern species, as his name implies, has a sandy-brown back, which contrasts strongly with the glossy black of his head, neck, and under parts. In summer the cocks of the two species grow more like one another owing to the wearing away of the outer edges of their feathers; but it is always possible to distinguish between them at a glance. The two species meet at about the latitude of Bombay. Oates states that in a certain zone, from Ahmednagar to the mouth of the Godaveri valley, both species occur, and they do not appear to interbreed.
“It seems impossible to maintain that natural selection, acting on minute variations, has brought about the divergence between these two species. Even if it be asserted that the difference in the colour of the feathers of the back of the two cocks is in some way correlated with adaptability to their particular environment, how are we to explain the fact that in a certain zone both species flourish?
“A similar phenomenon is furnished by the red-vented bulbul. This genus falls into several species, each corresponding to a definite locality and differing only in details from the allied species, as, for example, the distance down the neck to which the black of the head extends. There is a Punjab Red-vented Bulbul (Molpastes intermedius), a Bengal (Molpastes bengalensis), a Burmese (Molpastes burmanicus) and a Madras (Molpastes hæmorrhous) species.
“It does not seem possible to maintain the contention that these various species are the products of natural selection, for that would mean if the black of the head of the Punjab species extended further into the neck the bird could not live in that country.”
Thus, natural selection clearly is unable to explain some cases of divergence of character due to geographical isolation.
There remains the third explanation, that the divergence is the result of the simple fact of isolation.
We have already shown how insuperable are the objections to the view held by Romanes and Gulick.
It seems to us that explanation must lie in the fact that mutations occur every now and again in some species. If two portions of a species are separated and a mutation occurs in one portion and not in the other, and if the mutating form succeeds in supplanting the parent form in that isolated portion of the species in which it has appeared, we should have the phenomenon of two races or species differing in appearance although subjected to what appear to be identical environment.