Origin of Species Variorum

→ or wild dog 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

OMIT 1872

→ living free 1859 1860 1861 1866

for they live 1869 1872

→ I am inclined to look at 1859 1860 1861 1866

OMIT 1869 1872

→ as 1859 1860 1861 1866

may be looked at as 1869 1872

→ as that former species 1859 1860 1861 1866

OMIT 1869 1872

→ were capable of enduring 1859 1860 1861 1866

having formerly endured 1869 1872

fertile (a far severer test) under them, may be used as an argument that a large proportion of other

animals

animals,

now in a state of

nature

nature,

could easily be brought to bear widely different climates. We must not, however, push the foregoing argument too far, on account of the probable origin of some of our domestic animals from several wild

stocks;

stocks:

the blood, for instance, of a tropical and arctic wolf →or wild dog may perhaps be mingled in our domestic breeds. The rat and mouse cannot be considered as domestic animals, but they have been transported by man to many parts of the world, and now have a far wider range than any other

rodent;

rodent,

→living free under the cold climate of Faroe in the north and of the Falklands in the south, and on many

an island

islands

in the torrid zones. Hence →I am inclined to look at adaptation to any special climate →as a quality readily grafted on an innate wide flexibility of constitution,

~~which is~~

which is

common to most animals. On this view, the capacity of enduring the most different climates by man himself and by his domestic animals, and

the

such

fact

facts

→as that former species of the

extinct elephant

elephant

and rhinoceros →were capable of enduring a glacial climate, whereas the living species are now all tropical or sub-tropical in their habits, ought not to be looked at as anomalies, but

~~merely~~

merely

as examples of a very common flexibility of constitution, brought, under peculiar circumstances, into

action.

play.

How much of the acclimatisation of species to any peculiar climate is due to mere habit, and how much to the natural selection of varieties having different innate constitutions, and how much to both means combined, is

a very

obscure question. That habit or custom has some

influence,

influence

I must believe, both from

analogy

analogy,

and from the incessant advice given in agricultural works, even in the ancient Encyclopædias of China, to be very

cautious

cau- tious