Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1869

This greater variability in mongrels than in hybrids does not seem .. at all surprising. For the parents of mongrels are varieties, and mostly domestic varieties (very few experiments having been tried on natural varieties), and this implies ... that there has been recent variability, which would often continue and be added to that arising from the .. act of crossing. The slight variability of hybrids in .. the first ... generation, in contrast with ... the succeeding generations, is a curious fact and deserves attention. For it bears on .. the view which I have taken of one of the causes of ordinary variability: namely, that ... the reproductive system from being eminently sensitive to .. changed .. conditions of life, fails under these circumstances to perform its proper function of producing offspring identical in all respects with the parent-form. Now hybrids in the first generation are descended from species (excluding those .. long-cultivated) which have not had their reproductive systems in any way affected, and they are not variable; but hybrids themselves have their reproductive systems seriously affected, and their descendants are highly variable.

But to return to our comparison of mongrels and hybrids: Gärtner states that mongrels are more liable than hybrids to revert to either parent-form; but this, if it be true, is certainly only a difference in degree. Moreover, Gärtner expressly states that hybrids from long-cultivated plants are more subject to reversion than hybrids from species in their natural state; and this probably explains the singular difference in the results arrived at by different observers: thus, Max Wichura doubts whether hybrids ever revert to their parent-forms,

This greater variability of mongrels than of hybrids does not seem to me at all surprising. For the parents of mongrels are varieties, and mostly domestic varieties (very few experiments having been tried on natural varieties), and this implies in most cases that there has been recent variability; and therefore we might expect that such variability would often continue and be superadded to that arising from the mere act of crossing. The slight degree of variability in hybrids from the first cross or in the first generation, in contrast with their extreme variability in the succeeding generations, is a curious fact and deserves attention. For it bears on and corroborates the view which I have taken on the cause of ordinary variability; namely, that it is due to the reproductive system being eminently sensitive to any change in the conditions of life, being thus often rendered either impotent or at least incapable of its proper function of producing offspring identical with the parent-form. Now hybrids in the first generation are descended from species (excluding those long cultivated) which have not had their reproductive systems in any way affected, and they are not variable; but hybrids themselves have their reproductive systems seriously affected, and their descendants are highly variable.