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Show 214 SELECTION. CHAP. XX. marked cases with pigeons: for instance, I had a family of barbs, descended from those long bred by Sir J. Sebright, and another family long bred by another fancier, an~ the two families plainly differed from each other. Nathusms-and a more competent witness could not be dted-observes that, thoucrh the Shorthorns are remarkably uniform in appearance ( exc;pt in colouring), yet that the indi vidua~ character and wishes of each breeder become impressed on b1s cattle, so that different herds differ slightly from each other.77 rrhe Hereford cattle assumed their present well-markerl character soon after the year 1769, through careful selection by Mr. 1'omkins/8 and the breed. bas lately split into two strains-one strain having a white face, and differing slightly, it is said/9 in some other points ; but there is no reason to believe that this split, the origin of which is unknown, was intentionally made; it may with much more probability be attributed to different breeders having attended to different points. So again, the Berkshire breed of swine in the year 1810 had greatly changed from what it had been in 1780; and since 1810 at least two distinct sub-breeds have borne this same name.80 When we bear in mind how rapidly all animals increase, and that some must be annually slaughtered and some saved for breeding, then, if the same breeder during a long course of years deliberately settles which shall be saved and which shall be killed, it is almost inevitable that his individual frame of mind will influence the character of his stock, without his haying had any intention to modify the breed or form a new strain. Unconscious selection in the strictest sense of the word, that is, the saving of the more useful animals and the neglect or slaughter of the less useful, without any thought of the future, must have gone on occasionally from the remotest period and amongst the most barbarous nations. Savages often suffer from famines, and are sometimes expelled by war from their own homes. In such cases it can hardly be doubted that they would save their most useful animals. When the Fuegians 77 'Ueber Shorthorn Rindvieh,' 1857, s. 51. 78 Low, 'Domesticated Animals,' 1845, p. 363. 79 'Quarterly Review,' 1849, p. 392. 80 H. von Nathusius, 'Vorstudien .... Schweineschredel,' 1864, s. 140. CHAP, XX. UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 215 are ,hard pressed by want, they kill their old women for food rather than their clogs ; for, as we were assured, " old women no use-dogs ratch otters." The same sound sense ·would surely lead them to preserve their more useful clogs when still harder pressRcl by famine. l\lr. Oldfield, who has seen so much of the aborigines of Australia, informs me that "they are all very glad to get a European kangaroo dog, and several instances have been known of the father killing his own infant that the mother might. suckle the much-prized puppy." Different kinds of dogs would be useful to the Australian for hunting opossums and kangaroos, and to the Fuegian for catching fish and otters; and the occasional preservation in the two countries of the most useful animals would ulti'mately lead to the formation of two widely di~tinct breeds. \Vith plants, from the earliest dawn of civilisation, the best variety which at each period was known would generally have been cultivated and its seeds oceasionally sown; so that there will have been some selection from an extremely remote period, but without any prefixed standad of excellence or thought of the future. We at the present da.y profit by a course of selection occasionally and unconsciously carried on during thousands of years. This is proved in an interesting manner by Oswald Heer's researches on the lake-inhabitants of Switzerland, as given in a former chapter ; for he shows that the grain and seed of our present varieties of wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, lentils, and poppy, exceed in size those which were cultivated in Switzerland during the Neolithic and Bronze periods. These ancient people, during the Neolithic period, possessed also a crab consideraoly larger than that now growing wild on the Jura.81 The pears described by Pliny were evidently extremely inferior in quality to our present pears. vVe can realise the effects of long-continued selection and cultivation in another way, for would any one in his senses expect to raise a first-rate apple from the seed of a truly wild crab, or a luscious melting pear from the wild pear? Alphonse De Oandolle informs me that he has lately seen on au ancient mosaic at Rome a representation of s1 See also Dr. Christ, in 'Rlitimeyer's Pfahlbauten,' 1861, s. 226. |
