powerful transmuting influence of time, changed climate, and increased food. My present conviction is that the diversities which we see in even the most nearly allied species of birds, are not produced by any such influences, nor by hybridisation ; but that each distinct species, however nearly resembling any other, has been produced by a Creative Power: I am even disposed to adopt this view towards many forms that are usually considered as mere varieties. As far as I have been able to ascertain facts, hybrids that are fertile are even then saved from being posterityless (to coin a word) only by their progeny rapidly reverting to the type of one parent or the other: so that no intermediate race is founded. Things very soon go on as they went before, or they cease to go on at all. This is the case with varieties also, and is well known to breeders as one of the most inflexible difficulties they have to contend with, called by them "crying back." This circumstance first led me to suspect the permanence and antiquity of varieties, and even of what are called "improvements" and " new breeds." Half of the mongrels that one sees are only transition-forms, passing back to the type of one or other original progenitor. At least, my own eye can detect such to be frequently the apparent fact in the case of Domestic Fowls. Any analogies from plants must be cautiously applied to animals; but even in the vegetable kingdom the number and reproductive power of hybrids is apparently greater than it really is, owing to the facility of propagation by extension, by which means a perfectly sterile individual can be multiplied and kept in existence for many hundred years; whereas a half-bred bird or animal would, in a

short time, disappear, and leave no trace. I have not met with one authenticated fact of the race of Pheasants having been really and permanently incorporated with Fowls, so as to originate a mixed race capable of continuation with itself; but with many that prove the extreme improbability of such a thing happening. The vulgar notions, that Hens kept at the sides of plantations therefore become the mothers of half-bred chickens, by whom Pheasant blood is again transmitted to their progeny; and that Hens, whose plumage in some measure resembles that of the Cock Pheasant, are therefore hybrid individuals, are too vague to be listened to, in the absence of clearer evidence, which is not yet forthcoming. But it will not be easy to eradicate this prejudice from the popular mind. Mr. Darwin's discovery, the result of his great industry and experience, that " the reproductive system seems far more sensitive to any changes in external conditions, than any other part of the living œconomy," confirms my suspicion of the extreme improbability of the origination of any permanent, intermediate, reproductive breed by hybridising. It would thus seem, that so far as those organs are not much changed from their normal condition in one or other parent, (which we may suppose shown by the fact of their producing young resembling, not themselves, but their own parents) they are fertile ; but, when so changed as to be incapable of producing such young, they do not produce at all. At least, this is the way in which I must interpret the fact. The dissection of a fertile hybrid, and the comparison of its reproductive system with that of either parent, might throw light upon the question; but it would be a nice

undertaking. Mr. Darwin suggests, "If you ever had it in your power fairly to test the possible fertility of the half-and-half birds inter se, I certainly think you would confer a real service on Natural History." I have therefore proposed to myself to test the fertility of various halfbred Geese, one with another, avoiding as far as possible near relations, and confining myself to that genus especially, because almost any species of Goose will breed with any other. Geese, therefore, give greater promise of instructive if not successful experiments by the intermarriage of hybrids, than any other bird with which we are acquainted. If my suspicion be correct, that many varieties of Fowls (and perhaps of Dogs) are aboriginal, and not the results of Domestication, the mere fertility of hybrids (partial or complete) must cease to be a test between species and varieties. That, however, is a question of words, rather than of things. It may be observed that a sufficient number of lusus and hybrids have been produced, in the course of ages, to stock the world with an infinite variety of forms, had not that class of heterogeneous beings been in themselves of an unprolific and transitory nature. But the number of existing forms is diminishing instead of increasing. It is not too much to say, that if the history of the world goes on as it now does, every fifty years, for some time to come, will witness the extermination of at least one species of creature from the face of the globe.

The reader will perceive that a description has been given, in most cases, of the newly-hatched chicks of each species of Poultry. The idea of doing this was suggested by an inquiry, which had for its object to

ascertain the amount of differences in the very young of our supposed domestic races, compared with the difference of the mature animals, in relation to the general belief that, in youth, species differ very little from each other; it being really the fact that the embryos, of even distinct orders, are closely and fundamentally alike each other. But if these embryotic similarities between birds and any other class of creatures be sought for, the time of the exclusion of the chick from the egg is far too late in its existence to look for them. Observant persons who have themselves been practically engaged in the rearing of Poultry, will immediately recognise the newlyhatched chick of each variety with which they are acquainted. Nay, when an egg has been accidentally broken after a fortnight's incubation, I have myself been able to decide of what breed it would have been, had it survived. I believe that a comparison of the newlyhatched young of all wild birds would lead to the like result. The only chance of finding any such analogies, or rather confusion, would be obtained by examining the embryos of birds, reptiles, and fishes, two or three days after the hatching of the ovum had commenced.

But it is now time to say a few words on matters of more general interest.

As regards the money profits derivable from Poultry I have been reproached with confining myself to general statements, with avoiding details, abstaining from figures, and checking enterprise by mere assertions. But I had rather receive the praise of having deterred one sanguine speculator from obtaining an uncertain profit, than incur the blame of having urged twenty bold adventurers to a

certainly unprofitable outlay. In consequence of recent discoveries and new modes of management, we are to have companies formed for the production of poultry on a grand scale! When the apparatus is got together, and the capital expended, and it is found that, after all, the chickens cannot be reared, except by twos and threes, instead of by scores and hundreds, the bubble must burst, like thousands of others: meanwhile, we, prophets of evil, premise that the more densely poultry are congregated, the less profitable will they be; the more thickly they are crowded, the less will they thrive. Could I put together in figures a statement of great profits that would satisfy my own mind, and that I could honestly recommend as a guide to others, I would most gladly undertake so agreeable a task. Many of the debtor and creditor accounts of Fowl-keeping that have been published, will not bear close examination by those acquainted with the minutiae of the matter. It is not supposed that such accounts are put forth with a wilful intention to deceive; but they are no more to be relied on, for practical purposes, than would a shipowner's account of his herring-fishing, if it made no allowance for an occasional bad catch, the loss of a boat, or a set of nets worth 1007.; to say nothing of wear and tear, and the widows of drowned fishermen to assist. Nothing is so likely as specious detail to mislead those whose experience is insufficient to detect its incompleteness, not to say its error.

Thus, one writer (in the Agricultural Gazette, Sept. 23, 1848) tells us, that by adopting the regimen advised by one good Mrs. Doyley, Hens may be made to sit four times in