Page - 327 - in The Origin of Species

HYBRIDS AND MONGRELS COMPARED 327 HYBRIDS AND MONGRELS COMPARED, INDEPENDENTLY OF THEIR FERTILITY Independently of the question of fertility, the offspring of species and of varieties when crossed may be compared in several other respects. Gartner, whose strong wish it was to draw a distinct line between species and varieties, could find very few, and, as it seems to me, quite unimportant dif- ferences between the so-called hybrid offspring of species, and the so-called mongrel offspring of varieties. And, on the other hand, they agree most closely in many important re- spects, I shall here discuss this subject with extreme brevity. The most important distinction is, that in the first generation mongrels are more variable than hybrids ; but Gartner admits that hybrids from species which have long been cultivated are often variable in the first generation ; and I have myself seen striking instances of this fact. Gartner further admits that hybrids between very closely allied species are more variable than those from very distinct species ; and this shows that the difference in the degree of variability graduates away. When mongrels and the more fertile hybrids are propagated for several generations, an extreme amount of variability in the offspring in both cases is notorious ; but some few in- stances of both hybrids and mongrels long retaining a uniform character could be given. The variability, however, in the successive generations of mongrels is, perhaps, greater than in hybrids. This greater variability in mongrels than in hybrids does not seem at all surprising. For the parents of mongrels are varieties, and mostly domestic varieties (very few ex- periments having been tried on natural varieties,) and this implies that there has been recent variability, which would often continue and would augment that arising from the act of crossing. The slight variability of hybrids in the first generation, in contrast with that in the succeeding genera- tions, is a curious fact and deserves attention. For it bears on the view which I have taken of one of the causes of ordinary variability; namely, that the ;-eprodiictive system from being emmently sensitive to changed conditions oi life,