These remarks are of course confined to the first APPEARANCE of the peculiarity, and not to the primary cause which may have acted on the ovules or on the male element; in nearly the same manner as the increased length of the horns in the offspring from a short-horned cow by a long-horned bull, though appearing late in life, is clearly due to the male element.

Having alluded to the subject of reversion, I may here refer to a statement often made by naturalists--namely, that our domestic varieties, when run wild, gradually but invariably revert in character to their aboriginal stocks.

Hence it has been argued that no deductions can be drawn from domestic races to species in a state of nature.

I have in vain endeavoured to discover on what decisive facts the above statement has so often and so boldly been made.