with connecting ones, would be deemed distinct species, but he found they all passed insensibly into each other.
Prof. Parsons suggested that more extended observations might connect received species by intermediate forms, no less than so-called varieties; and Prof. Gray remarked that the intermediate forms, connecting by whatsoever numerous gradations the strongly divergent forms with that assumed as a type of a species, so far from disproving existence of varieties, would seem to furnish the best possible proof that these were varieties. Without the intermediate forms they would, it was said, be taken for species; their discovery reduced them to varieties, between which (according to the ordinary view), intermediate states were to be expected.
Recognizing, then, the existence of varieties, and of varieties sufficiently pronounced to have led careful naturalists to regard them as distinct species, what shall we say when it is found that these marked forms are correlated with certain physical conditions, many of which have originated within comparatively recent times? Dr. J. G. Cooper, after a careful study of the California land snails, ascertained that "species, sub-species, and varieties, living in cool, damp situations, become more highly developed (but not always larger) than the others; the shell assuming a more compact (imperforate) form, and losing those indications of immaturity referred to, viz., sharp, delicate sculpture, bristles, and angular periphery. These characteristics, however, remain more or less permanently for indefinite periods, and give that fixedness to the various forms, even when living under the same conditions, which enables us to retain them as sub-species differing from varieties in permanency, and from races in not inhabiting distinct regions." It may be added that Stearns, Bland, and Binney, have likewise observed the same peculiar variations associated with aridity.
In a broader field, and compassing different classes, Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Mr. J. A. Allen, and Mr. Robert Ridgway, have severally shown that marked and specific changes are seen in birds and mammals corresponding to differences in their surroundings. Prof. Baird, in a paper entitled "The Distribution and Migration of North American Birds," has shown that birds in high altitudes and those bred at the North are larger than those born South and at low altitudes; that Western birds of the same species have longer tails than eastern examples, and that the bill increases in size in those birds occurring in Florida as compared with those found north of that State, and that on the Pacific coast the birds are darker in color than those found in the interior.
Mr. J. A. Allen has made a more special study of this matter, and
- "Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Science," vol. v., p. 128.
- American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. xli., January and March, 1866.
- "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," vol. xv., p. 156.