Page - 174 - in The Origin of Species

174 ORIGIN OF SPECIES of the genus. The appearance of the stripes is not accom- panied by any change of form or by any other new character. We see this tendency to become striped most strongly dis- played in hybrids from between several of the most distinct species. Now observe the case of the several breeds of pigeons: they are descended from a pigeon (including two or three sub-species or geographical races) of a bluish colour, with certain bars and other marks; and when any breed assumes by simple variation a bluish tint, these bars and other marks invariably reappear; but without any other change of form or character. When the oldest and truest breeds of various colours are crossed, we see a strong ten- dency for the blue tint and bars and marks to reappear in the mongrels. I have stated that the most probable hypothe- sis to account for the reappearance of very ancient charac- ters, is—that there is a tendency in the young of each suc- cessive generation to produce the long-lost character, and that this tendency, from unknown causes, sometimes prevails. And we have just seen that in several species of the horse- genus the stripes are either plainer or appear more com- monly in the young than in the old. Call the breeds of pigeons, some of which have bred true for centuries, species; and how exactly parallel is the case with that of the species of the horse-genus ! For myself, I venture confidently to look back thousands on thousands of generations, and I see an animal striped like a zebra, but perhaps otherwise very differently constructed, the common parents of our domestic horse (whether or not it be descended from one or more wild stocks), of the ass, the hemionus, quagga, and zebra. He who believes that each equine species was indepen- dently created, will, I presume, assert that each species has been created with a tendency to vary, both under nature and under domestication, in this particular manner, so as often to become striped like the other species of the genus; and that each has been created with a strong tendency, when crossed with species inhabiting distant quarters of the world, to produce hybrids resembling in their stripes, not their own parents, but other species of the genus. To admit this view is, as it seems to me, to reject a real for an unreal, or at least for an unknown, cause. It makes the works of God a