CHAPTER IV.
MINUTE AND GRADUAL MODIFICATIONS.
There are difficulties as to minute modifications, even if not fortuitous .-- Examples of sudden and considerable modifications of different kinds .-- Professor Owen's view .-- Mr.Wallace .-- Professor Huxley .-- Objections to sudden changes .-- Labyrinthodont .-- Potto .-- Cetacea .-- As to origin of bird's wing .-- Tendrils of climbing plants .-- Animals once supposed to be connecting links .-- Early specialization of structure .-- Macrauchenia .-- Glyptodon .-- Sabre-toothed tiger .-- Conclusion.
Not only are there good reasons against the acceptance of the exclusive operation of "Natural Selection" as the one means of specific origination, but there are difficulties in the way of accounting for such origination by the sole action of modifications which are infinitesimal and minute, whether fortuitous or not.
Arguments may yet be advanced in favour of the view that new species have from time to time manifested themselves with suddenness, and by modifications appearing at once (as great in degree as are those which separate _Hipparion_ from _Equus_), the species remaining stable in the intervals of such modifications: by stable being meant that their variations only extend for a certain degree in various directions, like oscillations in a stable equilibrium.

This is the conception of Mr.
Galton,[76] who compares the development of species with a many {98} facetted spheroid tumbling over from one facet, or stable equilibrium, to another.

The existence of internal conditions in animals corresponding with such facets is denied by pure Darwinians, but it is contended in this work, though not in this chapter, that something may also be said for their existence.
The considerations brought forward in the last two chapters, namely, the difficulties with regard to incipient and closely similar structures respectively, together with palaeontological considerations to be noticed later, appear to point strongly in the direction of sudden and considerable changes.

This is notably the case as regards the young oysters already mentioned, which were taken from the shores of England and placed in the Mediterranean, and at once altered their mode of growth and formed prominent diverging rays, _like those of the proper Mediterranean oyster_; as also the twenty-nine kinds of American trees, all differing from their nearest European allies _similarly_--"leaves less toothed, buds and seeds smaller, fewer branchlets," &c.

To these may be added other facts given by Mr.Darwin.Thus he says, "that climate, to a certain extent, directly modifies the form of dogs."[77] The Rev.R.Everett found that setters at Delhi, though most carefully paired, yet had young with "nostrils more contracted, noses more pointed, size inferior, and limbs more slender." Again, cats at Mombas, on the coast of Africa, have short stiff hairs instead of fur, and a cat at Algoa Bay, when left only eight weeks at Mombas, "underwent a complete metamorphosis, having parted with its sandy-coloured fur."[78] The conditions of life seem to produce a considerable effect on horses, and instances are given by Mr.
Darwin of pony breeds[79] having independently arisen in different parts of the world, possessing a certain similarity in their physical {99} conditions.