Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1906-05-05

uSSulne luuI Ill lue sep
arate qualities displayed by the bird
have their representatives in the egg.
Now, If it were only possible to get
at these representative particles within
the egg, what changes might not be eff.
fected in the development of the bird
To take very simple example, the
peacock has white variety, lacking
the bright colors of the feathers. If
In the egg of the ordinary peacock we
could seize upon the representative par
ticles of the color ana impede their de-
velopment, perhaps we would succeed
in reproducing the white variety at
once and quite artifcially.
Obviously this is the heart of the
matter, for il once the principle should
be discovered to dislocate such q repre-
sentative we might apply it to numer-
GUS other instances. A white peacock
would be no novelty and no gain, but
we would be able to make white varie-
ties of other birds and other animals,
and perhaps even of the bright colored
flowers, which until now have resisted
all endeayors Of breeders in this line
of work.
Methods Of attacking this problem
are not at all failing. We might try
to kill some Of the representative parti-
cles in the egg, or to stun them, or to
injure them in ever so slight meas
ure, so as only TO retard their develop
ment.
The process of the evolution of ami
mails and plants must be attacked by
direct experiment. This evolution,
however, has a long history, covering
many millions Of years Its historical
part, of course, Is not accessible to OK
perimental work. From its innermost
nature it must be studied according to
historical and comparative methods.
In laboratory work we may simply
pass it by.
After eliminating this great mass Of
detail concerning the pedigree Of the
animal and vegetable kingdom two
points remain, which present them
selves for experimental study. These
are the beginning and the end. OBJ
viously the real end is not yet reached.
Evolution is going steadily on even
now. In the same way we may as
sumo that the beginning is not yet
finished The laws that ruled the
material world some twenty or thirty
millions Of years ago must have been
the same that are still ruling it in
our days. Circumstances may have
changed, but 1t is not very probable
that those which permitted life at the
beginning and those which have made
it possible during the long geological
ages should have been widely differ
ent. On the contrary, it seems only
natural to assume that new life may
nowadays originate as well as in for
iner times. 1t is only q question of
where we are to look for it.
On this very difficult point l like to
be guided by the genial conceptions of
Brooks. In his foundations of FOOL
ogy" he depicts the primeval seas and
their living population. All life must
have beenlimited at those early periods
to the high sea; all organisms were
floating amid +ho W. VOC. e,oi,, .. e,,l-, : o
a depth OF some few metres. Here the
main lines of the animal and vegetable
pedigree must have been produced,
the great divisions of both
kingdoms. The only exceptions are
offered by the Towering plants and the
animals, which seem to have
originated on the shores or perhaps Oh
the land itself. AS long as all life was
in this floating condition evolution pro-
ceeded rapidly and broadened out.
Then came a period when as Brooks
says, the organic world made the dis
covery of the possibility of living on
the bottom of the sea, feeding on the
sinking remains of the floating world.
This great change was the starting
point for numerous adaptations and
for the evolution of a richness Of forms
and structures, but without the pre-
vious progress in the production Of
many really new divisions.
The experience of agriculturists and
has long since estab
lished the fact that new forms Of ami
hietlS anu pluhlo llOll lll'C " lllhC
arise. How they originate is another
question, which it is not the task of
practice, but of science, to answer.
The fact, however, is undeniable, and
all observations point to sudden
changes or so-called sports as the first
Especially in the dominion
of horticulture Korshinsky has shown,