Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 by Various

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Genera, then, are groups of a more restricted character than any of
those we have examined thus far. Some of them include only one Species,
while others comprise hundreds; since certain definite combinations of
characters may be limited to a single Species, while other combinations
may be repeated in many. We have striking examples of this among Birds:
the Ostrich stands alone in its Genus, while the number of Species among
the Warblers is very great. Among Mammalia the Giraffe also stands
alone, while Mice and Squirrels include many Species. Genera are
founded, not, as we have seen, on general structural characters, but on
the finish of special parts, as, for instance, on the dentition. The
Cats have only four grinders in the upper jaw and three in the lower,
while the Hyenas have one more above and below, and the Dogs and Wolves
have two more above and two more below. In the last, some of the teeth
have also flat surfaces for crushing the food, adapted especially to
their habits, since they live on vegetable as well as animal substances.
The formation of the claws is another generic feature. There is a
curious example with reference to this in the Cheetah, which is again
a Genus containing only one Species. It belongs to the Cat Family,
but differs from ordinary Lions and Tigers in having its claws so
constructed that it cannot draw them back under the paws, though in
every other respect they are like the claws of all the Cats. But while
it has the Cat-like claw, its paws are like those of the Dog, and this
singular combination of features is in direct relation to its habits,
for it does not lie in wait and spring upon its prey like the Cat, but
hunts it like the Dog.

While Genera themselves are, like Families, easily distinguished, the
characters on which they are founded, like those of Families, are
difficult to trace. There are often features belonging to these groups
which attract the attention and suggest their association, though they
are not those which may be truly considered generic characters. It is
easy to distinguish the Genus Fox, for instance, by its bushy tail, and
yet that is no true generic character; the collar of feathers round the
neck of the Vultures leads us at once to separate them from the Eagles,
but it is not the collar that truly marks the Genus, but rather the
peculiar structure of the feathers which form it. No Bird has a more
striking plumage than the Peacock, but it is not the appearance merely
of its crest and spreading fan that constitutes a Genus, but the
peculiar structure of the feathers. Thousands of examples might be
quoted to show how easily Genera may be singled out, named, and entered
in our systems, without being duly characterized, and it is much to be
lamented that there is no possibility of checking the loose work of this
kind with which the annals of our science are daily flooded.

It would, of course, be quite inappropriate to present here any
general revision of these groups; but I may present a few instances to
illustrate the principle of their classification, and to show on what
characters they are properly based. Among Reptiles, we find, for
instance, that the Genera of our fresh-water Turtles differ from each
other in the cut of their bill, in the arrangement of their scales,
in the form of their claws, etc. Among Fishes, the different Genera
included under the Family of Perches are distinguished by the
arrangement of their teeth, by the serratures of their gill-covers, and
of the arch to which the pectoral fins are attached, by the nature and
combination of the rays of their fins, by the structure of their scales,
etc. Among Insects, the various Genera of the Butterflies differ in the
combination of the little rods which sustain their wings, in the form
and structure of their antennae, of their feet, of the minute scales
which cover their wings, etc. Among Crustacea, the Genera of Shrimps
vary in the form of the claws, in the structure of the parts of the
mouth, in the articulations of their feelers, etc. Among Worms, the
different Genera of the Leech Family are combined upon the form of the
disks by which they attach themselves, upon the number and arrangement
of their eyes, upon the structure of the hard parts with which the mouth
is armed, etc. Among Cephalopods, the Family of Squids contains several
Genera distinguished by the structure of the solid shield within the
skin of the back, by the form and connection of their fins, by the
structure of the suckers with which their arms are provided, by the
form of their beak, etc. In every Class, we find throughout the Animal
Kingdom that there is no sound basis for the discrimination of Genera
except the details of their structure; but in order to define them
accurately an extensive comparison of them is indispensable, and in
characterizing them only such features should be enumerated as are truly
generic; whereas in the present superficial method of describing them,
features are frequently introduced which belong not only to the whole
Family, but even to the whole Class which includes them.

X.

There remains but one more division of the Animal Kingdom for our
consideration, the most limited of all in its circumscription,--that
of Species. It is with the study of this kind of group that naturalists
generally begin their investigations. I believe, however, that the study
of Species as the basis of a scientific education is a great mistake.
It leads us to overrate the value of Species, and to believe that they
exist in Nature in some different sense from other groups; as if there
were something more real and tangible in Species than in Genera,
Families, Orders, Classes, or Branches. The truth is, that to study a
vast number of Species without tracing the principles that combine
them under more comprehensive groups is only to burden the mind with
disconnected facts, and more may be learned by a faithful and careful
comparison of a few Species than by a more cursory examination of a
greater number. When one considers the immense number of Species already
known, naturalists might well despair of becoming acquainted with them
all, were they not constructed on a few fundamental patterns, so that
the study of one Species teaches us a great deal for all the rest. De
Candolle, who was at the same time a great botanist and a great teacher,
told me once that he could undertake to illustrate the fundamental
principles of his science with the aid of a dozen plants judiciously
selected, and that it was his unvarying practice to induce students to
make a thorough study of a few minor groups of plants, in all their
relations to one another, rather than to attempt to gain a superficial
acquaintance with a large number of species. The powerful influence he
has had upon the progress of Botany vouches for the correctness of his
views. Indeed, every profound scholar knows that sound learning can be
attained only by this method, and the study of Nature makes no exception
to the rule. I would therefore advise every student to select a few
representatives from all the Classes, and to study these not only with
reference to their specific characters, but as members also of a Genus,
of a Family, of an Order, of a Class, and of a Branch. He will soon
convince himself that Species have no more definite and real existence
in Nature than all the other divisions of the Animal Kingdom, and that
every animal is the representative of its Branch, Class, Order, Family,
and Genus as much as of its Species, Specific characters are only
those determining size, proportion, color, habits, and relations to
surrounding circumstances and external objects. How superficial, then,
must be any one's knowledge of an animal who studies it only with
relation to its specific characters! He will know nothing of the finish
of special parts of the body,--nothing of the relations between its
form and its structure,--nothing of the relative complication of its
organization as compared with other allied animals,--nothing of the
general mode of execution,--nothing of the plan expressed in that mode
of execution. Yet, with the exception of the ordinal characters, which,
since they imply relative superiority and inferiority, require, of
course, a number of specimens for comparison, his one animal would tell
him all this as well as the specific characters.

All the more comprehensive groups, equally with Species, have a
positive, permanent, specific principle, maintained generation after
generation with all its essential characteristics. Individuals are
the transient representatives of all these organic principles, which
certainly have an independent, immaterial existence, since they outlive
the individuals that embody them, and are no less real after the
generation that has represented them for a time has passed away than
they were before.

From a comparison of a number of well-known Species belonging to a
natural Genus, it is not difficult to ascertain what are essentially
specific characters. There is hardly among Mammalia a more natural Genus
than that which includes the Rabbits and Hares, or that to which the
Rats and Mice are referred. Let us see how the different Species differ
from one another. Though we give two names in the vernacular to
the Genus Hare, both Hares and Rabbits agree in all the structural
peculiarities which constitute a Genus; but the different Species are
distinguished by their absolute size when full-grown,--by the nature and
color of their fur,--by the size and form of the ear,--by the relative
length of their legs and tail,--by the more or less slender build of
their whole body,--by their habits, some living in open grounds,
others among the bushes, others in swamps, others burrowing under the
earth,--by the number of young they bring forth,--by their different
seasons of breeding,--and by still minor differences, such as the
permanent color of the hair throughout the year in some, while in others
it turns white in winter. The Rats and Mice differ in a similar way:
there being large and small Species,--some gray, some brown, others
rust-colored,--some with soft, others with coarse hair; they differ also
in the length of the tail, and in having it more or less covered with
hair,--in the cut of the ears, and their size,--in the length of
their limbs, which are slender and long in some, short and thick in
others,--in their various ways of living,--in the different substances
on which they feed,--and also in their distribution over the surface
of the earth, whether circumscribed within certain limited areas
or scattered over a wider range. What is now the nature of these
differences by which we distinguish Species? They are totally distinct
from any of the categories on which Genera, Families, Orders, Classes,
or Branches are founded, and may readily be reduced to a few heads. They
are differences in the proportion of the parts and in the absolute size
of the whole animal, in the color and general ornamentation of the
surface of the body, and in the relations of the individuals to one
another and to the world around. A farther analysis of other Genera
would show us that among Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, and, in fact,
throughout the Animal Kingdom, Species of well-defined natural Genera
differ in the same way. We are therefore justified in saying that the
category of characters on which Species are based implies no structural
differences, but presents the same structure combined under certain
minor differences of size, proportion, and habits. All the specific
characters stand in direct reference to the generic structure, the
family form, the ordinal complication of structure, the mode of
execution of the Class, and the plan of structure of the Branch, all of
which are embodied in the frame of each individual in each Species, even
though all these individuals are constantly dying away and reproducing
others; so that the specific characters have no more permanency in the
individuals than those which characterize the Genus, the Family, the
Order, the Class, and the Branch. I believe, therefore, that naturalists
have been entirely wrong in considering the more comprehensive groups
to be theoretical and in a measure arbitrary, an attempt, that is, of
certain men to classify the Animal Kingdom according to their individual
views, while they have ascribed to Species, as contrasted with the other
divisions, a more positive existence in Nature. No further argument
is needed to show that it is not only the Species that lives in the
individual, but that every individual, though belonging to a distinct
Species, is built upon a precise and definite plan which characterizes
its Branch,--that that plan is executed in each individual in a
particular way which characterizes its Class,--that every individual
with its kindred occupies a definite position in a series of structural
complications which characterizes its Order,--that in every individual
all these structural features are combined under a definite pattern of
form which characterizes its Family,--that every individual exhibits
structural details in the finish of its parts which characterize its
Genus,--and finally that every individual presents certain peculiarities
in the proportion of its parts, in its color, in its size, in its
relations to its fellow-beings and surrounding things, which constitute
its specific characters; and all this is repeated in the same kind of
combination, generation after generation, while the individuals die.
If we accept these propositions, which seem to me self-evident, it is
impossible to avoid the conclusion that Species do not exist in Nature
in any other sense than the more comprehensive groups of the zoological
systems.

There is one question respecting Species that gives rise to very earnest
discussions in our day, not only among naturalists, but among all
thinking people. How far are they permanent, and how far mutable? With
reference to the permanence of Species, there is much to be learned from
the geological phenomena that belong to our own period, and that bear
witness to the invariability of types during hundreds of thousands of
years at least. I hope to present a part of this evidence in a future
article upon Coral Reefs, but in the mean time I cannot leave this
subject without touching upon a point of which great use has been made
in recent discussions. I refer to the variability of Species as shown in
domestication.

The domesticated animals with their numerous breeds are constantly
adduced as evidence of the changes which animals may undergo, and as
furnishing hints respecting the way in which the diversity now observed
among animals has already been produced. It is my conviction that such
inferences are in no way sustained by the facts of the case, and that,
however striking the differences may be between the breeds of our
domesticated animals, as compared with the wild Species of the same
Genus, they are of a peculiar character entirely distinct from those
that prevail among the latter, and are altogether incident to the
circumstances under which they occur. By this I do not mean the natural
action of physical conditions, but the more or less intelligent
direction of the circumstances under which they live. The inference
drawn from the varieties introduced among animals in a state of
domestication, with reference to the origin of Species, is usually this:
that what the farmer does on a small scale Nature may do on a large one.
It is true that man has been able to produce certain changes in the
animals under his care, and that these changes have resulted in a
variety of breeds. But in doing this, he has, in my estimation, in no
way altered the character of the Species, but has only developed its
pliability to the will of man, that is, to a power similar in its
nature and mode of action to that power to which animals owe their very
existence. The influence of man upon Animals is, in other words, the
action of mind upon them; and yet the ordinary mode of arguing upon
this subject is, that, because the intelligence of man has been able to
produce certain varieties in domesticated animals, therefore physical
causes have produced all the diversities among wild ones. Surely, the
sounder logic would be to infer, that, because our finite intelligence
can cause the original pattern to vary by some slight shades of
difference, therefore an infinite intelligence must have established
all the boundless diversity of which our boasted varieties are but the
faintest echo. It is the most intelligent farmer that has the greatest
success in improving his breeds; and if the animals he has so fostered
are left to themselves without that intelligent care, they return
to their normal condition. So with plants: the shrewd, observing,
thoughtful gardener will obtain many varieties from his flowers; but
those varieties will fade out, if left to themselves. There is, as it
were, a certain degree of pliability and docility in the organization
both of animals and plants, which may be developed by the fostering care
of man, and within which he can exercise a certain influence; but the
variations which he thus produces are of a peculiar kind, and do not
correspond to the differences of the wild Species. Let us take some
examples to illustrate this assertion.

Every Species of wild Bull differs from the others in its size; but
all the individuals correspond to the average standard of size
characteristic of their respective Species, and show none of those
extreme differences of size so remarkable among our domesticated
Cattle. Every Species of wild Bull has its peculiar color, and all the
individuals of one Species share in it: not so with our domesticated
Cattle, among which every individual may differ in color from every
other. All the individuals of the same Species of wild Bull agree in the
proportion of their parts, in the mode of growth of the hair, in its
quality, whether fine or soft: not so with our domesticated Cattle,
among which we find in the same Species overgrown and dwarfish
individuals, those with long and short legs, with slender and stout
build of the body, with horns or without, as well as the greatest
variety in the mode of twisting the horns,--in short, the widest
extremes of development which the degree of pliability in that Species
will allow.

A curious instance of the power of man, not only in developing the
pliability of an animal's organization, but in adapting it to suit his
own caprices, is that of the Golden Carp, so frequently seen in bowls
and tanks as the ornament of drawing-rooms and gardens. Not only an
infinite variety of spotted, striped, variegated colors has been
produced in these Fishes, but, especially among the Chinese, so famous
for their morbid love of whatever is distorted and warped from its
natural shape and appearance, all sorts of changes have been brought
about in this single Species. A book of Chinese paintings showing the
Golden Carp in its varieties represents some as short and stout,
others long and slender,--some with the ventral side swollen, others
hunch-backed,--some with the mouth greatly enlarged, while in others
the caudal fin, which in the normal condition of the Species is placed
vertically at the end of the tail and is forked like those of other
Fishes, has become crested and arched, or is double, or crooked, or has
swerved in some other way from its original pattern. But in all these
variations there is nothing which recalls the characteristic specific
differences among the representatives of the Carp Family, which in their
wild state are very monotonous in their appearance all the world over.

Were it appropriate to accumulate evidence here upon this subject, I
could bring forward many more examples quite as striking as those above
mentioned. The various breeds of our domesticated Horses present the
same kind of irregularities, and do not differ from each other in the
same way as the wild Species differ from one another. Or take the Genus
Dog: the differences between its wild Species do not correspond in the
least with the differences observed among the domesticated ones. Compare
the differences between the various kinds of Jackals and Wolves with
those that exist between the Bull-Dog and Greyhound, for instance, or
between the St. Charles and the Terrier, or between the Esquimaux and
the Newfoundland Dog. I need hardly add that what is true of the Horses,
the Cattle, the Dogs, is true also of the Donkey, the Goat, the Sheep,
the Pig, the Cat, the Rabbit, the different kinds of barn-yard fowl,--in
short, of all those animals that are in domesticity the chosen
companions of man.

In fact, all the variability among domesticated Species is due to the
fostering care, or, in its more extravagant freaks, to the fancies of
man, and it has never been observed in the wild Species, where, on
the contrary, everything shows the closest adherence to the distinct,
well-defined, and invariable limits of the Species. It surely does
not follow, that, because the Chinese can, under abnormal conditions,
produce a variety of fantastic shapes in the Golden Carp, therefore
water, or the physical conditions established in the water, can create a
Fish, any more than it follows, that, because they can dwarf a tree, or
alter its aspect by stunting its growth in one direction and forcing it
in another, therefore the earth, or the physical conditions connected
with their growth, can create a Pine, an Oak, a Birch, or a Maple.
I confess that in all the arguments derived from the phenomena of
domestication, to prove that all animals owe their origin and diversity
to the natural action of the conditions under which they live, the
conclusion does not seem to me to follow logically from the premises.
And the fact that the domesticated animals of all races of men, equally
with the white race, vary among themselves in the same way and differ
in the same way from the wild Species, makes it still more evident that
domesticated varieties do not explain the origin of Species, except, as
I have said, by showing that the intelligent will of man can produce
effects which physical causes have never been known to produce, and that
we must therefore look to some cause outside of Nature, corresponding in
kind, though so different in degree, to the intelligence of man, for
all the phenomena connected with the existence of animals in their wild
state. So far from attributing these original differences among animals
to natural influences, it would seem, that, while a certain freedom of
development is left, within the limits of which man can exercise his
intelligence and his ingenuity, not even this superficial influence is
allowed to physical conditions unaided by some guiding power, since in
their normal state the wild Species remain, so far as we have been able
to discover, entirely unchanged,--maintained, it is true, in their
integrity by the circumstances that were established for their support
by the power that created both, but never altered by them. Nature holds
inviolable the stamp that God has set upon his creatures; and if man
is able to influence their organization in some slight degree, it is
because the Creator has given to his relations with the animals he has
intended for his companions the same plasticity which he has allowed to
every other side of his life, in virtue of which he may in some sort
mould and shape it to his own ends, and be held responsible also for its
results.

The common sense of a civilized community has already pointed out the
true distinction in applying another word to the discrimination of the
different kinds of domesticated animals. They are called Breeds, and
Breeds among animals are the work of man;--Species were created by God.

* * * * *

THE STRASBURG CLOCK.

Many and many a year ago,--
To say how many I scarcely dare,--
Three of us stood in Strasburg streets,
In the wide and open square,
Where, quaint and old and touched with the gold
Of a summer morn, at stroke of noon
The tongue of the great Cathedral tolled,
And into the church with the crowd we strolled
To see their wonder, the famous Clock.
Well, my love, there are clocks a many,
As big as a house, as small as a penny;
And clocks there be with voices as queer
As any that torture human ear,--
Clocks that grunt, and clocks that growl,
That wheeze like a pump, and hoot like an owl,
From the coffin shape with its brooding face
That stands on the stair, (you know the place,)
Saying, "Click, cluck," like an ancient hen,
A-gathering the minutes home again,
To the kitchen knave with its wooden stutter,
Doing equal work with double splutter,
Yelping, "Click, clack," with a vulgar jerk,
As much as to say, "Just see me work!"

But of all the clocks that tell Time's bead-roll,
There are none like this in the old Cathedral;
Never a one so bids you stand
While it deals the minutes with even hand:
For clocks, like men, are better and worse,
And some you dote on, and some you curse;
And clock and man may have such a way
Of telling the truth that you can't say nay.

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