| → OMIT 1872 |
| of the subject: 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
|
| → OMIT 1872 |
| and females to different habits of life, or the males 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
|
| → are possessed by all the species;— 1872 |
| the species possess in common;— 1859 1860 1861 |
| the species possess in common; — 1866 1869 |
|
| → OMIT 1872 |
| these same characters between 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
|
| → being the descendants of 1872 |
| having descended from 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869 |
|
|
which happen to stand on my list; and as the differences in these cases are of a very unusual nature, the relation can hardly be accidental. The same number of joints in the tarsi is a character
common to very large groups of beetles, but in the Engidæ, as Westwood has remarked, the number varies greatly; and the number likewise differs in the two sexes of the same
in
hymenoptera, the
of
the wings is a character of the highest importance, because common to large groups; but in certain genera the neuration differs in the different species, and likewise in the two sexes of the same species.
Lubbock has recently remarked, that several minute crustaceans offer excellent illustrations of this law. "In Pontella, for instance, the sexual characters are afforded mainly by the anterior
and by the fifth pair of legs: the specific differences also are principally given by these organs." This relation has a clear meaning on my
→OMIT
I look at all the species of the same genus as having as certainly descended from
progenitor, as have the two sexes of any one
species.
whatever part of the structure of the common progenitor, or of its early descendants, became
variations of this part would, it is highly probable, be taken advantage of by natural and sexual selection, in order to fit the several species to their several places in the economy of nature, and likewise to fit the two sexes of the same species to each other, or to fit the males
→OMIT
to struggle with other males for the possession of the females. |
|
| Finally, then, I conclude that the greater variability of specific characters, or those which distinguish species from species, than of generic characters, or those which
→are possessed by all the species;—
that the frequent extreme variability of any part which is developed in a species in an extraordinary manner in comparison with the same part in its congeners; and the
degree of variability in a part, however extraordinarily it may be developed, if it be common to a whole group of
that the great variability of secondary sexual characters, and
great
difference in
→OMIT
closely allied
that secondary sexual and ordinary specific differences are generally displayed in the same parts of the
are all principles closely connected together. All being mainly due to the species of the same group
→being the descendants of
a common progenitor, from whom they have inherited much in
to parts which have recently and largely varied being more likely still to go on varying than parts which have long been inherited and have not
to natural selection having more or less
|
