Thus it is, as I believe, that two or more genera are produced by descent with modification, from two or more species of the same genus.

And the two or more parent-species are supposed to be descended from some one species of an earlier genus.

In our diagram this is indicated by the broken lines beneath the capital letters, converging in sub-branches downwards towards a single point; this point represents a species, the supposed progenitor of our several new sub-genera and genera.

It is worth while to reflect for a moment on the character of the new species F14, which is supposed not to have diverged much in character, but to have retained the form of (F), either unaltered or altered only in a slight degree.

In this case its affinities to the other fourteen new species will be of a curious and circuitous nature.