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Some kinds, more hardy and fitted by nature for the chase, became wild, and their descendants are now found in the woods. Of these, there are three sorts which keep apart from each other, and are thought not to interbreed. The most numerous are the black. The black wood-dog is short and stoutly made, with shaggy hair, sometimes marked with white patches.
Specimens of the larynx which we preserved in formalin are now being prepared for anatomical study. Although the two species inhabit the same locality, they keep well by themselves and only once, on the Panj-kiang plain, did we see them running together in the same herd; then it was probably because they were frightened by the car. I doubt if they ever interbreed except in rare instances.
So long as they interbreed together, the possible divergence is kept within narrow limits, but whenever a variety is produced, the individuals of which have a partiality for interbreeding, and some amount of sterility when crossed with the parent form, the tie that bound it to the central stock is loosened, and the foundation is laid for the formation of a new species.
The unity of mankind is also conclusively shown by the fact that all races interbreed, the most certain test of every species. All these facts pointing to the unity of the race in the days of Noah and of Adam are irreconcilable with the theory of evolution which denies that unity within the last two million years. We shall present these arguments more in detail.
The latter has been offered in this country as the "hardy" gladiolus, but it will not endure severe freezing. These species hybridize together when opportunity presents, but do not readily interbreed with the African kinds and have rarely developed garden forms superior to the respective wild types. The blooming time is early spring.
Those individuals that, from natural variation, are born with light-nerves a little more sensitive to light than their parents, will cross or interbreed with those who have the same organs a little less sensitive, and thus the mean standard will be kept up without any advancement.
The teeth of these two kinds of bears show a marked and uniform difference, proving conclusively that there is no interbreeding between the species. I was told by Dr. Merriam that the idea which is so commonly believed, that different species of bears interbreed like dogs, is entirely wrong.
They are suckled for two months, but at the end of that time they are able to eat half-digested flesh disgorged for them by their dam or even their sire. We have seen that there is no authenticated instance of a hybrid between the dog and the fox. This is not the case with the dog and the wolf, or the dog and the jackal, all of which can interbreed. Moreover, their offspring are fertile.
But being ignorant of the elementary biological proposition that modification of a species means really a secular change in its average, they jumped to a conclusion to which the late Lord Salisbury also jumped years ago at a very memorable British Association meeting that a species is modified by the sudden appearance of eccentric individuals here and there in the general mass who interbreed preferentially.
That the dog and the wolf have a common origin there can be no doubt, and that they will interbreed is equally sure, but diligent inquiry on the part of the writer for a number of years, throughout all interior Alaska, amongst whites and natives, has failed to educe one authentic instance of intentional interbreeding, has failed to discover one man who knows of his own knowledge that any living dog is the offspring of such union.
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