I would wish, too, that the "Savoyard"
would have condescended to notice that little matter of the bear. I
have searched my copy of Darwin again and again to find anything
relating to the subject except what I have quoted in my previous
letter.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A. M.
DARWIN ON SPECIES: [From the Press, April 11th, 1863.]
To the Editor of the Press.
Sir - Your correspondent "A. M." is pertinacious on the subject of the
bear being changed into a whale, which I said Darwin contemplated as
not impossible. I did not take the trouble in any former letter to
answer him on that point, as his language was so intemperate. He has
modified his tone in his last letter, and really seems open to the
conviction that he may be the "careless" writer after all; and so on
reflection I have determined to give him the opportunity of doing me
justice.
In his letter of February 21 he says: "I cannot sit by and see
Darwin misrepresented in such a scandalously slovenly manner. What
Darwin does say is 'that SOMETIMES diversified and changed habits may
be observed in individuals of the same species; that is, that there
are certain eccentric animals as there are certain eccentric men. He
adduces a few instances, and winds up by saying that in North America
the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open
mouth, thus catching, ALMOST LIKE A WHALE, insects in the water.'
THIS, AND NOTHING MORE, pp. 201, 202."
Then follows a passage about my carelessness, which (he says) is
hardly to be reprehended in sufficiently strong terms, and he ends
with saying: "This is disgraceful."
Now you may well suppose that I was a little puzzled at the seeming
audacity of a writer who should adopt this style, when the words
which follow his quotation from Darwin are (in the edition from which
I quoted) as follows: "Even in so extreme a case as this, if the
supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors
did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a
race of bears being rendered by natural selection more and more
aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths,
till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."
Now this passage was a remarkable instance of the idea that I was
illustrating in the article on "Barrel-organs," because Buffon in his
Histoire Naturelle had conceived a theory of degeneracy (the exact
converse of Darwin's theory of ascension) by which the bear might
pass into a seal, and that into a whale. Trusting now to the
fairness of "A. M." I leave to him to say whether he has quoted from
the same edition as I have, and whether the additional words I have
quoted are in his edition, and if so whether he has not been guilty
of a great injustice to me; and if they are not in his edition,
whether he has not been guilty of great haste and "carelessness" in
taking for granted that I have acted in so "disgraceful" a manner.
I am, Sir, etc.,
"The Savoyard," or player
on Barrel-organs.
(The paragraph in question has been the occasion of much discussion.
The only edition in our hands is the third, seventh thousand, which
contains the paragraph as quoted by "A. M." We have heard that it is
different in earlier editions, but have not been able to find one.
The difference between "A. M." and "The Savoyard" is clearly one of
different editions. Darwin appears to have been ashamed of the
inconsequent inference suggested, and to have withdrawn it. - Ed. the
Press.)
DARWIN ON SPECIES: [From the Press, 22nd June, 1863.]
To the Editor of the Press.
Sir - I extract the following from an article in the Saturday Review
of January 10, 1863, on the vertebrated animals of the Zoological
Gardens.
"As regards the ducks, for example, inter-breeding goes on to a very
great extent among nearly all the genera, which are well represented
in the collection. We think it unfortunate that the details of these
crosses have not hitherto been made public. The Zoological Society
has existed about thirty-five years, and we imagine that evidence
must have been accumulated almost enough to make or mar that part of
Mr. Darwin's well-known argument which rests on what is known of the
phenomena of hybridism. The present list reveals only one fact
bearing on the subject, but that is a noteworthy one, for it
completely overthrows the commonly accepted theory that the mixed
offspring of different species are infertile inter se. At page 15
(of the list of vertebrated animals living in the gardens of the
Zoological Society of London, Longman and Co., 1862) we find
enumerated three examples of hybrids between two perfectly distinct
species, and even, according to modern classification, between two
distinct genera of ducks, for three or four generations. There can
be little doubt that a series of researches in this branch of
experimental physiology, which might be carried on at no great loss,
would place zoologists in a far better position with regard to a
subject which is one of the most interesting if not one of the most
important in natural history."
I fear that both you and your readers will be dead sick of Darwin,
but the above is worthy of notice. My compliments to the "Savoyard."
Your obedient servant,
May 17th. A. M.
DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES
"Darwin Among the Machines" originally appeared in the Christ Church
PRESS, 13 June, 1863. It was reprinted by Mr. Festing Jones in his
edition of THE NOTE-BOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER (Fifield, London, 1912,
Kennerley, New York), with a prefatory note pointing out its
connection with the genesis of EREWHON, to which readers desirous of
further information may be referred.
