“The second consists of joining together two animals, by two wounds which coalesce. One can then cut off from first, the fragment of his person nearest the point of junction, which thereafter will live upon the second.
“The third consists of transplanting, without any attachment, a part of one animal to another animal, always in such a way that it preserves its own life. That is the most elegant way of the three, and the one which has attracted me.
“The operation was regarded as a ticklish one, for many reasons, the principal one of which is, that a grafting is less likely to succeed the further removed the two subjects are from one another in the scale of relationship.
“Grafting succeeds when it is done on the same animal; less well from father to son, and worse and worse from brother to brother, from cousin to cousin, from Frenchman to Spaniard, man to woman, and child to old man.
“When I came on the scene, the exchange I am talking about always came to naught in different zoölogical families, and more so still in the case of genera and species.
“However, some experiments are an exception to this—experiments on which I have based my own, wishing to accomplish the greater thing, before successfully accomplishing the lesser, and to graft a fish on a bird before dealing with humanity alone. I say a few experiments.
“1. Wiesmann tore from his arm a canary’s feather, which he had transplanted into it a month before, and which left a little bleeding wound.
“2. Baronio has grafted the wing of a canary, and the tail of a rat on the comb of a cock.
“This was not much, but Nature herself encouraged me.
“3. Birds cross without any shame, and produce numerous hybrids, which bear witness to the possibility of fusion between species.