The assumption of Darwin and Wallace that variations are haphazard in origin and indefinite in direction—If these assumptions be not correct Natural Selection ceases to be the fundamental factor in evolution—Darwin’s views regarding variation underwent modification—He eventually recognised the distinction between definite and indefinite variations, and between continuous and discontinuous variations—Darwin attached but little importance to either definite or discontinuous variations—Darwin’s views on the causes of variations—Criticism of Darwin’s views—Variations appear to occur along certain definite lines—There seems to be a limit to the extent to which fluctuating variations can be accumulated—De Vries’ experiments—Bateson on “discontinuous variation”—Views held by De Vries—Distinction between continuous and discontinuous variations—The work of De Vries—Advantages enjoyed by the botanist in experimenting on the making of species—Difficulties encountered by the animal breeder—Mutations among animals—The distinction between germinal and somatic variations—The latter, though not transmitted to offspring, are often of considerable value to their possessor in the struggle for existence.
The assumption of Darwin and Wallace that variations are haphazard in origin and indefinite in direction—If these assumptions be not correct Natural Selection ceases to be the fundamental factor in evolution—Darwin’s views regarding variation underwent modification—He eventually recognised the distinction between definite and indefinite variations, and between continuous and discontinuous variations—Darwin attached but little importance to either definite or discontinuous variations—Darwin’s views on the causes of variations—Criticism of Darwin’s views—Variations appear to occur along certain definite lines—There seems to be a limit to the extent to which fluctuating variations can be accumulated—De Vries’ experiments—Bateson on “discontinuous variation”—Views held by De Vries—Distinction between continuous and discontinuous variations—The work of De Vries—Advantages enjoyed by the botanist in experimenting on the making of species—Difficulties encountered by the animal breeder—Mutations among animals—The distinction between germinal and somatic variations—The latter, though not transmitted to offspring, are often of considerable value to their possessor in the struggle for existence.
As we have already seen, the Darwinian theory, unlike that of Lamarck, does not attempt to explain the origin of variations. It is content with the fact that variations do occur.
Although Darwin did not try to explain how it is that variation occurs, and was very guardedin the expressions he used concerning it, he assumed that variations are indefinite in variety and occur indiscriminately in all directions, as the following quotations from theOrigin of Specieswill show: “But the number and diversity of inheritable deviations of structure . . . are endless” (page 14, ed. 1902). “The variations are supposed to be extremely slight, but of the most diversified nature.” “I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree to those under nature, were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation” (page 164).
Wallace is far less guarded in his expressions. On page 82 of hisDarwinismhe speaks of “the constant and large amount of variation of every part in all directions . . . which must afford an ample supply of favourable variations whenever required.”
The double assumption that variations are for all practical purposes haphazard in origin and indefinite in direction is necessary if natural selection is to be the main factor in evolution. For if variations be not haphazard, if they are definite, if there be a directive force behind them, like fate behind the classical gods, then selection is not the fundamental cause of evolution. Itcan at most effect, not the origin of species, but the survival of certain species which have arisen as the result of some other force. Its position is changed; it is no longer a cause of the origin of new organisms, but a sieve determining which of certain ready-made forms shall survive. Evidently, then, we shall not be able to fully understand the evolutionary process until we have discovered how it is that variations are caused. In other words, we must go considerably farther than Darwin attempted to do.
Before proceeding to inquire into the true nature of variations, it behoves us to set forth briefly the ideas of Darwin on the subject. We shall then be in a position to see how much progress has been made since the days of that great biologist.
It is not at all easy to discover exactly what were Darwin’s views on the subject of variation. A perusal of his works reveals contradictions, and gives one the impression that he himself scarcely knew his own mind upon the subject. This should not be a matter for surprise.
We must remember that Darwin had to do pioneer work, that he had to deal with altogether new conceptions. Such being the case, his ideas were of necessity somewhat hazy; they underwent considerable modification as fresh facts came to his knowledge.
Towards the end of his life Darwin recognisedthat variability is of two kinds—definite and indefinite. Indefinite variation is indiscriminate variation in all directions around a mean, variation which obeys what we may perhaps call the law of chance. Definite variation is variation in a determinate direction—variation chiefly on one side of the mean. Darwin believed that these determinate variations were caused by external forces, and that they are inherited. He thus accepted Lamarckian factors. “Each of the endless variations,” he writes, “which we see in the plumage of our fowls, must have had some efficient cause, and if the same causes were to act uniformly during a long series of generations on many individuals, all probably would be modified in the same direction.”
But Darwin was always of opinion that this definite variability, this variability in one direction as the result of some fixed cause, is far less important, from an evolutionary point of view, than indefinite variability, that it is the exception rather than the rule, that the usual result of changed conditions is to let loose a flood of indefinite variability, that it is almost exclusively upon this that natural selection acts.
Darwin also recognised that variations differ in degree, even as they do in kind. He perceived that some variations are much more pronounced than others. He recognised the distinction between what are now known ascontinuous and discontinuous variations. The former are slight departures from the normal; the latter are considerable deviations from the mean or mode; great jumps, as it were, taken by nature, as, for example, the pea and the rose combs of fowls, which were derived from the normal single comb.
“At long intervals of time,” wrote Darwin, “out of millions of individuals reared in the same country and fed on nearly the same food, deviations of structure so strongly pronounced as to deserve to be called monstrosities arise, but monstrosities cannot be separated by any distinct line from slighter variations.” Therefore it is evident that he regarded the difference between continuous and discontinuous variations as not one of kind, but merely of degree. To the discontinuous variations Darwin attached very little importance from an evolutionary point of view. He looked upon them as something abnormal.
“It may be doubted,” he wrote, “whether such sudden and considerable deviations of structure such as we occasionally see in our domestic productions, more especially with plants, are ever permanently propagated in a state of nature. Almost every part of every organic being is so beautifully related to its complex conditions of life that it seems as improbable that any part should have been suddenly producedperfect, as that a complex machine should have been invented by a man in a perfect state. Under domestication monstrosities sometimes occur which resemble normal structures in widely different animals. Thus pigs have occasionally been born with a sort of proboscis, and if any wild species of the same genus had naturally possessed a proboscis, it might have been argued that this had appeared as a monstrosity; but I have as yet failed to find, after diligent search, cases of monstrosities resembling normal structures in nearly allied forms, and these alone bear on the question. If monstrous forms of this kind ever do appear in a state of nature and are capable of reproduction (which is not always the case), as they occur rarely and singly, their preservation would depend on unusually favourable circumstances. They would, also, during the first and succeeding generations cross with the ordinary form, and thus their abnormal character would almost inevitably be lost.” But, in a later edition of theOrigin of Species, Darwin seems to contradict the above assertion: “It should not, however, be overlooked that certain rather strongly marked variations, which no one would rank as mere individual differences, frequently recur owing to a similar organisation being similarly acted on—of which fact numerous instances could be given with our domestic productions. In such cases,if the varying individual did not actually transmit to its offspring its newly acquired character, it would undoubtedly transmit to them, as long as the existing conditions remained the same, a still stronger tendency to vary in the same manner. There can also be little doubt that the tendency to vary in the same manner has often been so strong that all the individuals of the same species have been similarly modified without the aid of any form of selection. Or only a third, fifth, or tenth part of the individuals may have been thus affected, of which fact several instances could be given. Thus Graba estimates that about one-fifth of the guillemots in the Faroe islands consist of a variety so well marked, that it was formerly ranked as a distinct species under the nameUria lacrymans. In cases of this kind, if the variation were of a beneficial nature, the original form would soon be supplanted by the modified form, through the survival of the fittest.” Here we seem to have a plain statement of the origin of new forms by mutation.
Again, we read (page 34): “Some variations useful to him (i.e.man) have probably arisen suddenly, or by one step; many botanists, for instance, believe that the fuller’s teasel, with its hooks, which cannot be rivalled by any mechanical contrivance, is only a variety of the wild Dipsacus; and this amount of change may have suddenlyarisen in a seedling. This is known to be the case with the turnspit dog.”[2]But, as we have already said, Darwin at no time attached much importance to these jumps made by nature as a factor in evolution. He pinned his faith to the minute, indefinite variations which he believed could be piled up, one upon another, so that, if allowed sufficient time, either nature or the human breeder could, by a continued selection of these minute variations, call into being any kind of organism. The importance of selection, he writes, “consists in the great effect produced by the accumulation in one direction, during successive generations, of differences absolutely inappreciable by an uneducated eye” (page 36). On page 132 he writes: “I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings . . . which may have been effected[3]in the long course of time by nature’s power of selection.” He expressly states, on page 149, that he sees no reason to limit the process to the formation of genera alone.
Although the theory of natural selection does not attempt to explain the causes of variation,Darwin paid some attention to the subject. He believed that both internal and external causes contribute to variation, that variations tend to be inherited whether the result of causes within the organism or outside it. He believed that the inherited effect of use and disuse was a cause of variation, and cited, as examples, the lighter wing-bones and heavier leg-bones of the domestic duck and the drooping ears of some domestic animals. He supposed that animals showed a greater tendency to vary when under domestication than when in their natural state, attributing the supposed greater variability to the excess of food received, and the changed conditions of the life of domestic animals. Nevertheless, he was fully alive to the fact that “nearly similar variations sometimes arise under, as far as we can judge, dissimilar conditions; and, on the other hand, dissimilar variations arise under conditions which appear to be nearly uniform.” In other words, the nature of organisms appeared to Darwin to be a more important factor in the origin of variations than external conditions. Evidence of this is afforded by the fact that some animals are more variable than others. Finally, he frankly admitted how great was his ignorance of the causes of variability. Variability is, he stated, governed by unknown laws which are infinitely complex.
It will be convenient to deal with each ofDarwin’s main ideas on variation separately, and to consider to what extent they seem to require modification in the light of later research.
Firstly, Darwin believed that variations arise in what appears to be a haphazard manner, that they occur in all directions, and seem to be governed by the same laws as chance. It is our belief that we are now in a position to make more definite statements regarding variation than Darwin was able to.
Biologists can now assert definitely that variations do not always occur equally in all directions. The results of many years of the efforts of practical breeders demonstrate this. These men have not been able to produce a green horse, a pigeon with alternate black and white feathers in the tail, or a cat with a trunk, for the simple reason that the organisms upon which they operated do not happen to have varied in the required direction. It may perhaps be objected that breeders have no desire to produce such forms; had they wished to do so, they would probably have succeeded. To this objection we may reply that they have not managed to produce many organisms, which would be highly desirable from a breeder’s point of view, as, for example, a blue rose, hens that lay brown eggs but do not become broody at certain seasons of the year, or a cat that cannot scratch.
As Mivart well says, on page 118 of hisGenesis of Species, “Not only does it appear that there arebarriers which oppose change in certain directions, but that there are positive tendencies to development along certain special lines. In a bird which has been kept and studied like the pigeon, it is difficult to believe that any remarkable spontaneous variations would pass unnoticed by breeders, or that they would not have been attended to and developed by some fancier or other. On the hypothesis of indefinite variability, it is then hard to say why pigeons with bills like toucans, or with certain feathers lengthened like those of trogons, or those of birds of paradise, have never been produced.”
There are certain lines along which variation seems never to occur. Take the case of the tail of a bird. Variable though this organ be, there are certain kinds of tail that are seen neither in wild species nor domesticated races. A caudal appendage, of which the feathers are alternately coloured, occurs neither in wild species nor in artificial breeds. For some reason or other, variations in this direction do not occur. Similarly, with the exception of one or two of the “Noddy” terns, whenever a bird has any of its tail feathers considerably longer than the others, it is always the outer pair or the middle pair that are so elongated. It would thus appear that variations in which the other feathers are especially lengthened do not usually occur. The fact that they are elongated in two or three wild species is the more significant,because it shows that there is apparently nothing inimical to the welfare of a species in having, say, the third pair of tail feathers from the middle exceptionally prolonged.
This is a most important point, and one which seems to be ignored by the majority of scientific men, who appear to be misled by the boastful talk of certain successful breeders. Thus, on page 29 of theOrigin of Species, Darwin quotes, with approval, Youatt’s description of selection as “the magician’s wand, by means of which he may summon into life whatever form and mould he pleases.” Darwin further cites Sir John Sebright as saying, with regard to pigeons, that he would “produce any given feather in three years, but it would take him six years to obtain head and beak.”
If it were possible absolutely to originate anything by selection, horticulturists would almost certainly ere this have produced a pure black flower. The fact that not a single mammal exists, either in nature or under domestication, with scarlet, blue, or green in its hair, appears to show that, for some reason or other, mammals never vary in any of these directions.
The fact that so few animals have developed prehensile tails seems to indicate that variation does not often occur in that direction, for obviously a prehensile tail is of the very greatest utility to its possessor; so that there can belittle room for doubt that it would be seized upon and preserved by natural selection, whenever it occurred.
As E. H. Aitken very truly says, “so early and useful an invention should, one would think, have been spread widely in after time; but there appears to be some difficulty in developing muscles at the thin end of a long tail, for the animals that have turned it into a grasping organ are few and are widely scattered. Examples are the chameleon among lizards, our own little harvest mouse, and, pre-eminent among all, the American monkeys” (Strand Magazine, Nov. 1908).
Even as there are many variations which seem never to occur in nature, so are there others which occur so frequently that they may be looked for in any species. Albinistic forms appear now and again in almost every species of mammal or bird; while melanistic sports, although not so common, are not by any means rare.
Every complete manual on poultry gives for each breed a note of the faults which constantly appear, and which the fancier has to watch carefully for and guard against. The fact that these “faults” occur so frequently in each breed shows how strong is the tendency to vary in certain definite directions. It is true that some of these faults are in the nature of reversions, as, forexample, the appearance of red hackles in the cocks of black breeds of poultry. On the other hand, some certainly are not reversions, such as the appearance of a white ring in the neck of the female of the Rouen duck, which should resemble the Mallard as regards the plumage of the neck. Again, the tendency of Buff Orpingtons to assume white in the wings and tail must be regarded as a variation which is not in the nature of a reversion. In short, the efforts of all breeders are largely directed to fighting against the tendencies which animals display towards variation in certain directions.
This tendency to vary in the direction of whiteness may account for many of the white markings which occur in nature, as, for example, the white tails of the Sea Eagle (Haliaetus albicilla) the Nicobar Pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica), and many hornbills. Provided that such variations are not too great a handicap to their possessors in the struggle for existence, natural selection will allow them to persist.
It was the belief of Linnæus, based on experience, that every blue or red-coloured flower is likely to produce a white variety, hence he held that it is not safe to trust to colour for the identification of a botanical species.
On the other hand, white flowers are not likely to produce red varieties, and we believe we may positively assert that they never produce a bluesport. Similarly, white animals appear not to give rise to colour varieties.
We are never surprised to find that an ordinary upright plant produces as a sport or mutation a pendulous, or fastigiate form. These aberrant varieties, be it noted, occur in species which belong to quite different orders.
De Vries points out that laciniated leaves appear in such widely separated trees and shrubs as the walnut, the beech, the hazel-nut, and the turnip.
Another example of the definiteness of variation is furnished by what Grant Allen calls the “Law of Progressive Colouration” of flowers.
On pp. 20, 21 ofThe Colours of Flowers, he writes, “All flowers, as we know, easily sport a little in colour. But the question is, do their changes tend to follow any regular and definite order? Is there any reason to believe that the modification runs from any one colour toward any other? Apparently there is. . . . All flowers, it would seem, were in their earliest form yellow; then some of them became white; after that a few of them grew to be red or purple; and finally a comparatively small number acquired the various shades of lilac, mauve, violet, or blue.”
So among animals there are many colour patterns and structures that appear in widely different genera, as, for example, the magpiecolouring in birds. With this phenomenon we shall deal more fully when speaking of animal colouration. There is certainly no small amount of evidence which seems to indicate that, from some cause or other, an impetus has been given to certain organs to develop along definite lines. The reduction of the number of digits in several mammalian families which are not nearly related is a case in point. This phenomenon is, as Cope points out, observed in Marsupials, Rodents, Insectivores, Carnivores, and Ungulates. He, being a Lamarckian, ascribes this to the inherited effects of use. Wallaceians attribute it solely to the action of natural selection. The assumption of a growth-force or tendency for the development of one digit at the expense of the others, would explain the phenomenon equally well. And it is significant that many palæontologists are believers in some kind of a growth-force. In the case of certain extinct animals we seem to have examples of the over-development of organs. “Palæontology,” writes Kellog on p. 275 of hisDarwinism To-day, “reveals to us the one-time existence of animals, of groups of animals, and of lines of descent, which have had characteristics which led to extinction. The unwieldiness of the giant Cretaceous reptiles, the fixed habit of life of the crinoids, the coiling of the ammonities and the nautili, the gigantic antlers of the Irish stag—all these are examplesof development along disadvantageous lines, or to disadvantageous degrees. The statistical studies of variation have made known numerous cases where the slight, as yet non-significant (in a life-and-death struggle) variation in pattern of insects, in dimensions of parts, in relative proportions of superficial non-active areas, are not fortuitous, that is, do not occur scattered evenly about a mean or mode according to the law of error, but show an obvious and consistent tendency to occur along certain lines, to accumulate in certain directions.”
It seems to us that the only proper attitude to adopt in the present state of our knowledge is, not to call in to our aid an unknown growth-force, but simply to say that there is evidence to show that variations frequently occur along certain definite lines only.
Darwin’s second assumption was that there is no limit to which variations may be accumulated in any direction; that by adding one minute variation to another through countless generations new species, new genera, new families may arise. This assumption, if applied to continuous or fluctuating variations, seems opposed to facts. All the evidence available goes to show that there is a definite limit to which minute variations can be accumulated in any given direction. No one has succeeded in breeding a dog as large as a horse, or a pigeon with a beak as long as thatof a snipe. In the case of racehorses, which have been selected so carefully through a long period of time, we seem to have reached the limit of speed which can be attained by the multiplication of insignificant variations. We do not wish to dogmatise, but we believe that of late years there has not been any material increase in the speed of our racehorses.
Mr S. Sidney says, on page 174 ofCassell’s Book of the Horse: “As far as form went (paceAdmiral Rous), the British racehorse had reached perfection in 1770, when ‘Eclipse’ was six years old.” He quotes the measurements of the skeleton of “Eclipse” in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons as evidence of this. All the efforts of breeders, then, have failed appreciably to improve the form of the British racehorse in the course of over a century and a quarter.
De Vries has made some important experiments with a view to determining whether or not there is a limit to the amount of change which can be induced by the selection of fluctuating or continuous variations as opposed to mutations. “I accidentally found,” he writes, on page 345 ofSpecies and Varieties: their Origin by Mutation, “two individuals of the ‘five-leaved’ race (of clover); by transplanting them into my garden I have isolated them and kept them free from cross-fertilisation with theordinary type. Moreover, I brought them under such conditions as are necessary for the full development of their character; and last, but not least, I have tried to improve their character as far as possible by a very rigid and careful selection. . . . By this method I brought my strain within two years up to an average of nearly 90 per cent. of the seedlings with a divided primary leaf (such seedlings averaging five leaves in the adult). . . . This condition was reached by the sixth generation in the year 1894, and has since proved to be the limit, the figures remaining practically the same through all the succeeding generations. . . . I have cultivated a new generation of this race nearly every year since 1894, using always the strictest selection. This has led to a uniform type, but has not been adequate to produce further improvement.” Similarly, De Vries found in the bulbous buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus) a strain varying largely in the number of petals; therefore he tried by means of continuous selection of those flowers having the largest number of petals to produce a double flower, but was not able to do so. He succeeded in evolving a strain with an average number of nine petals, some individuals having as many as twenty or thirty; but even by breeding only from these last he could not increase the average number of petals in anygeneration beyond nine. This was the limit to be obtained by the most rigorous selection of fluctuating variations.
Selection, based on fluctuating variation, does not, asserts De Vries, conduce to the production of improved races. “Only temporary ameliorations are obtained, and the selection must be made in the same manner every year. Moreover, the improvement is very limited, and does not give any promise of further increase.” Notwithstanding prolonged efforts, horticulturists have not yet succeeded in breeding a biennial race of either beetroots or carrots that does not continually give rise to useless annual forms. Writing of the beet, De Vries says useless annual varieties “are sure to return each year. They are ineradicable. Every individual is in the possession of this latent quality, and liable to convert it into activity as soon as the circumstances provoke its appearance, as is proved by the increase of annuals in the early sowings”—that is to say, in circumstances favourable to the annual variety.
It will be urged perhaps that these experiments, which seem to show that there is a limit to which a species can be modified by the accumulation of fluctuating variations, cannot have been properly carried out, because all the various breeds of pigeons and other domestic animals clearly show that extraordinary differencesnot only can, but have actually been produced by the selection of such variations. This objection is based upon the assumption that breeders have in the past dealt only with fluctuating variations. This assumption does not appear to be justified. It is exceedingly probable that most, if not all, the varieties of domesticated animals have originated in mutations. Take, for instance, the modern turbit pigeon; this has been derived from the old Court-bec, described and figured over two centuries ago by Aldrovandus.
De Vries goes so far as to assert that the various races of pears are all mutations; that each distinct flavour is a mutation, and that it is impossible to produce a new flavour by selecting fluctuating variations. Thus it would appear that in every case of the production of a new breed a mutation has occurred which has attracted the fancy of some breeder, and he has seized upon this and perpetuated it.
All the evidence available tends to show that there is a limit—and one which is quickly reached—to the amount of change that can be produced by the selection of fluctuating or continuous variations. We, therefore, seem driven to the belief that evolution is based on the kind of variation which Professor Bateson terms “discontinuous variation” and Professor De Vries calls “mutation.”
As long ago as 1894 Bateson published hisMaterials for the Study of Variation, in which he set forth a large number of cases of discontinuous variation which he had collected. He pointed out that species are discontinuous, that they are sharply separated one from another, whereas “environments often shade into one another and form a continuous series.” How, then, he asked, if variations are minute and continuous, have these discontinuous species arisen? May not variation prove to be discontinuous, and thus make it clear why species are discontinuous?
On page 15 of the above-cited work we find: “The preliminary question, then, of the degree of continuity with which the process of evolution occurs has never been decided. In the absence of such a decision, there has nevertheless been a common assumption, either tacit or expressed, that the process is a continuous one. The immense consequence of a knowledge of the truth as to this will appear from a consideration of the gratuitous difficulties which have been introduced by this assumption. Chief among these is the difficulty which has been raised in connection with the building up of new organs in their initial and imperfect stages, the mode of transformation of organs, and, generally, the selection and perpetuation of minute variations. Assuming, then, that variations are minute, we are met by this familiar difficulty. We knowthat certain devices and mechanisms are useful to their possessors; but from our knowledge of natural history we are led to think that their usefulness is consequent on the degree of perfection in which they exist, and that if they were at all imperfect, they would not be useful. Now it is clear that in any continuous process of evolution such stages of imperfection must occur, and the objection has been raised that natural selection cannot protect such imperfect mechanisms so as to lift them into perfection. Of the objections which have been brought against the theory of natural selection this is by far the most serious.”
Bateson further pointed out that chemical compounds are not continuous, that they do not merge gradually each into the next, and suggested that we might expect a similar phenomenon in the organic world.
Elsewhere he says: “Let the believer in the efficacy of selection operating on continuous fluctuations try to breed a white or a black rat from a pure strain of black-and-white rats, by choosing for breeding the whitest or the blackest; or to raise a dwarf sweet pea from a tall race by choosing the shortest. It will not work. Variation leads and selection follows.”
But Bateson’s views fell upon stony ground, because zoologists are mostly men of theory and not practical breeders. They laboured under thedelusion that mutations or “sports” are rare in nature, and that when these do happen to occur they must of necessity be swamped by inter-crossing.
However, the discovery of the Abbé Mendel’s account of his experiments on breeding mongrel sweet peas has opened the eyes of many zoologists, so that they have at last learned what practical breeders have known for untold years—namely, that sports have a way of perpetuating themselves. Moreover, Mendel was able to give a theoretical explanation of his discoveries, with the result that the believers in discontinuous variation have largely increased in number of late.
While we are unable to see eye to eye with Professor Bateson in all things, we gladly recognise the immense value of his work. Had his statements in 1894 received the attention they merited, zoological theory would to-day be considerably more advanced than it actually is.
Professor De Vries has gone farther than Bateson, having engrafted upon the Darwinian hypothesis the theory of mutations. He has done no small amount of experimental work, and has undoubtedly thrown much new light on the ways in which species arise. He is purely a botanist, so that he argues only from plants. Nevertheless, we believe that some of his conclusions are applicable to animals. We are farfrom accepting his theory of mutationsin toto. We are, however, convinced that he, like Bateson, is on the right track. There can be no doubt that a great many new forms have originated suddenly, by jumps, and not by imperceptibly slow degrees. Before giving a list of the names of some of the races, both plant and animal, which appear to have come into existence suddenly, it will be of advantage to consider for a little some of the more important conceptions of De Vries.
That eminent botanist, as we have already seen, insists on the distinction between fluctuating variations and mutations. The former correspond, for all practical purposes, to the continuous variations of Bateson, and the latter seem to be equivalent to his discontinuous variations.
According to De Vries, all plants display fluctuating variation, but only a small percentage exhibit the phenomenon of mutation. The most daring of his conceptions is, that the history of every species is made up of alternating periods of inactivity, when only fluctuating variations occur, and of activity when “swarms of species” are produced by mutation, and of these only a few at the most survive; natural selection, which De Vries likens to a sieve, determining which shall live and which shall perish.
As we have seen, De Vries does not believe that new species can arise by the accumulation of fluctuating variations. By means of these the race may be greatly improved, but nothing more can be accomplished. These variations follow Quetelet’s law, which says that, for biological phenomena, deviations from the average comply with the same laws as the deviations from the average in any other case, if ruled by chance alone.
Very different in character are mutations. By means of these, new forms, quite unlike the parent species, suddenly spring into being. Mutations are said by De Vries to be of two kinds—those that produce varieties and those which result in new elementary species.
According to De Vries, those species of plants which are in a state of mutation (he refers to the species of the systematic botanists) are of a composite nature, being made up of a collection of varieties and elementary species. His conception of a variety is a plant that differs from the parent plant in the loss or suppression of one or more characters, while an elementary species differs from the parent form in the possession of some new and additional character. But we will allow him to speak for himself: “We can consider (page 141Species and Varieties) the following as the principal difference between elementary species and varieties: that the first arise by theacquisition of entirely new characters, and the latter by the loss of existing qualities, or by the gain of such peculiarities as may already be seen in other allied species. If we suppose elementary species and varieties originated by sudden leaps and bounds, or mutations, then the elementary species have mutated in the line of progression, some varieties have mutated in the line of retrogression, while others have diverged from the parental types in a line of digression or in the way of repetition. . . . The system (of the vegetable kingdom) is built up of species; varieties are only local and lateral, never of real importance for the whole structure.”
De Vries asserts that these elementary species, when once they arise, breed true, and show little or no tendency to revert to the ancestral form. We can, says De Vries, ascertain only by experiment which plants are in the mutating state and which are not. The great majority, however, are not at present in the mutating state.
The distinction between fluctuating variation and mutation has been roughly illustrated by the case of a solid block of wood having a number of facets, on one of which it stands. If the block be tilted slightly it will, when the force that has tilted it is removed, return to its old position. Such a gentle tilt may be compared to a fluctuating variation in an organism. If, however, the block be tilted to such an angle that when left toitself the block does not return to its old position, but tips over and comes to rest on another facet, we have a representation of the kind of change indicated by a mutation.
The analogy is far from perfect, for it makes it appear that the smallest mutation must of necessity involve a departure from the normal type more considerable than that of the largest fluctuating variation. Now, although mutations ordinarily consist in considerable deviations from the mean or mode of the type, while continuous variations are usually minute deviations, it sometimes happens that the extreme fluctuations are more considerable than some mutations. Hence “fluctuating” describes this latter kind of variation more accurately than “continuous” does.
The test, then, of a mutation is not so much the amount of deviation as the degree in which it is inherited. Mutations show no tendency to a gradual return to the mean of the parent species; fluctuating variations do display such a tendency. A mutation consists, as M. E. East says, in the production of a new mode or centre for linear fluctuation; it is, as it were, a shifting of the centre of gravity; the centre about which those fluctuations which we call continuous variations occur.
As it is of considerable importance thoroughly to grasp the true nature of mutations or discontinuousvariations, and as some writers do not appear to realise wherein lies the essential difference between the two kinds of variation, we will, at the risk of appearing tedious, give a further illustration. Let A be a species of bird of which the average length of the wing is 20 inches, and let us suppose that individuals belonging to that species occur in which the length of the wing varies as much as 3 inches each side of the mean; thus it is possible to find individuals of this species with a wing as short as 17 inches, or as long as 23 inches. Let B be another species of which the average length of the wing is 17 inches, and let us suppose that a 3-inch variation on each side of the mean be found to occur. Individuals belonging to species B will occur which have a wing as short as 14 inches, or as long as 20 inches. Thus some individuals of the short-winged species will have longer wings than certain individuals of the long-winged species. Similarly, certain individuals of a species which display a mutation may show less deviation from the mean than some individuals showing a very pronounced fluctuating variation. In other words, even as by measuring the length of wing in the above example it was not always possible to say whether a given individual belonged to species A or B, so is it not always possible to say by looking at an individual that shows a considerable departure from themean whether that departure is due to a mutation or a fluctuating variation.
It is only by watching the effect of the peculiarity on the offspring of its possessor that we are able to determine the nature of the variation. Where the peculiarity is due to a fluctuating variation the offspring will display the peculiarity in a diminished degree; but if the peculiarity be due to a mutation, the offspring are likely to display it in as marked a degree as the parent.
Fritz Müller and Galton conducted independently enquiries into the amount of the regression shown by the progeny of parents which have deviated from the average by fluctuating variation.
Müller experimented with Indian corn; Galton with the sweet pea.
Each found that where the deviation of the parents is represented by the figure 5, that of their offspring is usually 2, that is to say, the deviation they display is, on the average, less than half that of their parents.
Applying this rule to the hypothetical case given above, if two individuals of species A having a length of wing of 20 inches be bred together, their offspring will, on an average, have a length of wing of 20 inches, since neither parents showed any deviation from the mean. On the other hand, the offspring of 20-inch-wing individuals of species B would show, on anaverage, a length of wing of only about 18¼ inches. They tend to return to that mode from which their parents had departed.
But suppose that the deviation of the parents in this case had been due, not to fluctuating variation, but to a mutation; this would mean that, owing to some internal change in the egg that produced each parent, 20 inches became the normal length of wing; that the normal length of wing had suddenly shifted from 17 inches to 20 inches.
The result of this would be that their offspring would have on an average a wing-length of 20 inches instead of 18¼ inches, that the centre of variation as regards length of wing had suddenly shifted from 17 to 20, that, in future, all fluctuating variations would occur on either side of 20 inches, instead of on either side of 17 inches as heretofore.
Thus a variation is a fluctuating one or a mutation according as it does or does not obey Galton’s Law of Regression.
De Vries says that it is of the essence of mutations that they are completely inherited. This statement, although substantially true, fails to take into consideration the factor of fluctuating variation. For example, in the above instance if the two individuals of species B had mutated into forms with a 20-inch wing, their offspring will nevertheless varyinter se, some of themwill have wings shorter than 20 inches and others wings more than 20 inches in length. But the average wing-length of the offspring of the two mutating individuals will be 20 inches.
So much, then, for the practical difference between a mutation and a fluctuating variation. In Chapter V. we shall discuss the possible causes of the difference. By way of anticipation we may say that the suggestion we shall make is that a mutation is due to some rearrangement in the particles which represent that part of the organism in the fertilised egg, whereas a fluctuating variation is caused by variations in the particles themselves.
De Vries, it should be noted, bases his theory largely on experimental evidence. His dictum is “the origin of species is an object of experimental observation.” He has, we consider, proved conclusively that among plants mutations sometimes occur, and, further, that in a mutating plant the same mutation tends to occur again and again. This latter is a most important fact, because it goes some way towards overcoming the difficulty urged by Darwin that isolated sports must be swamped by continual crossing with the normal type. If mutations arise in swarms, as De Vries asserts they do, then any particular mutation is likely, sooner or later, to cross with a similar mutation and so be able to perpetuate itself.
The classical example of a mutating plant is the evening primrose of the speciesOenothera lamarckiana. This is described by De Vries as a stately plant, with a stout stem, attaining often a height of 1.6 metres or more. The flowers are large and of a bright yellow colour, attracting immediate attention, even from a distance. “This striking species,” he writes, inSpecies and Varieties(p. 525), “was found in a locality near Hilversum, in the vicinity of Amsterdam, where it grew in some thousands of individuals. Ordinarily biennial, it produces rosettes in the first, and stems in the second year. Both the stems and the rosettes were seen to be highly variable, and soon distinct varieties could be distinguished among them.
“The first discovery of this locality was made in 1886. Afterwards I visited it many times, often weekly or even daily, and always at least once a year up to the present time. This stately plant showed the long-sought peculiarity of producing a number of new species every year. Some of them were observed directly in the field, either as stems or rosettes. The latter could be transplanted into my garden for further observation, and the stems yielded seeds to be sown under like control. Others were too weak to live a sufficiently long time in the field. They were discovered by sowing seed from indifferent plants of the wild locality in the garden. A thirdand last method of getting still more new species from the original strain was the repetition of the sowing process, by saving and sowing the seed which ripened on the introduced plants. These various methods have led to the discovery of over a dozen new types, never previously observed or described.” Some of these De Vries regards as varieties, in the sense in which he uses the words; others, he maintains, are real progressive species, some of which are strong and healthy, others weaker and apparently not destined to be successful. All these types proved absolutely constant from seed. “Hundreds of thousands of seedlings may have arisen, but they always come true and never revert to the originalO. lamarckianatype. But some of them, however, are, like their parent form, liable to mutations.” The case of the evening primrose is by no means an isolated one. De Vries cites several other instances of plants in a mutating state. “The common poppy,” he says (p. 189), “varies in height, in colour of foliage and flowers; the last are often double or laciniated. It may have white or bluish seeds, the capsules may open themselves or remain closed, and so on. But every single variety is absolutely constant, and never runs into another when the flowers are artificially pollinated and the visits of insects excluded.” Similarly the garden carnation sometimes gives rise to the wheat-ear form. “In thisvariety,” writes De Vries (p. 228), “the flower is suppressed, and the loss is attended by a corresponding increase in the number of pairs of bracts. This malformation results in square spikes, or somewhat elongated heads, consisting only of the greenish bracts. As there are no flowers, the variety is quite sterile, and, as it is not regarded by horticulturists as an improvement on the ordinary bright carnations, it is seldom multiplied by layering. Notwithstanding this it appears from time to time, and has been seen in different countries and at different periods, and what is of great importance for us, in different strains of carnations. Though sterile, and obviously dying out as often as it springs into existence, it is nearly two centuries old. It was described in the beginning of the eighteenth century by Volckamer, and afterwards by Jaeger, De Candolle, Weber, Masters, Magnus, and many other botanists. I have had it twice at different times and from different growers.” Similarly, the long-headed green dahlia arose twice over some years ago in the nursery of Messrs Zocher & Co.
Further, the peloric Toad-flax (Linaria vulgaris peloria) is, De Vries informs us, “known to have originated from the ordinary type at different times and in different countries under more or less divergent conditions.” And, as this variety is wholly barren, it must in each instance have had an independent origin. Lastly, thepurple beech seems to be a mutation which has originated at least three times over.
Every one interested in biological theory should read bothSpecies and VarietiesandPlant Breedingby De Vries, works which are of incalculable value to the horticulturist and agriculturist as well as to the biologist.
While not wishing to detract in any way from the truly splendid work done by De Vries, we feel constrained to bring several charges against him.
Firstly, he suffers from the complaint that seizes nine out of ten originators of new theories. He pushes his theory to extreme lengths; he allows his imagination to run away with him. We do not think that on the evidence available he is justified in asserting that every species passes through alternating periods of comparative quiescence and periods in which it throws off, as mutations, swarms of elementary species. He is justified in asserting that discontinuous variation is by no means an uncommon phenomenon, but further than this it does not seem safe to go at present.
Secondly, he ought to lay more stress on the fact thatOenothera lamarckianais a plant which does not appear to be known in the wild state, and that it is therefore possibly a hybrid plant, and the so-called elementary species which it gives off may be merely the varieties out ofwhich it has been built up. Boulenger and Bailey have both studied this plant, and they have not been able to witness all the mutations of which De Vries speaks, so that the former says, “The fact thatOenothera lamarckianawas originally described from a garden flower, grown in the ParisJardin des Plantes, and that, in spite of diligent search, it has not been discovered wild anywhere in America, favours the probability that it was produced by crossing various forms of the polymorphicOenothera biennis, which had been previously introduced in Europe.”
It has further been objected that, even if these various forms which Lamarck’s evening primrose throws off are true mutations, they ought not to be called new species, for they do not differ sufficiently from the parent species to deserve the name of new species. The reply to this criticism is that De Vries asserts that mutations produce new elementary species, which are not the same things as new species in the ordinary sense of the term. Most Linnæan species differ from one another to a far greater extent than do elementary species. It seems to us quite plain that new species arise, not by a single mutation, but by two or three successive mutations which occur in various parts of an organism.
First arises a well-marked variety, by a single mutation. Subsequent mutations follow, so thata distinct race is produced. And, finally, fresh mutations occur, so that a new species is eventually produced.
What De Vries calls an elementary species the majority of systematists would call a well-marked variety.
We may take this opportunity of remarking that the definition of a species is one on which naturalists seem unable to agree.
So vast is the field of biology, that now-a-days biologists are compelled to specialise to some extent. Thus we have botanists, ornithologists, those who devote themselves to the study of mammals, those who confine themselves to reptiles, or insects, or fishes, or crustaceans, or bacteria, etc.
Now each class of systematists has its own particular criterion of what constitutes a species. Ornithologists do not seem very exacting. Most of them appear to consider a constant difference of colour sufficient for the formation into a species of the birds that display such a variation. Those who study reptiles, on the other hand, do not allow that a mere difference in colour is sufficient to promote its possessor to specific rank. Into these nice questions we cannot enter. For our purpose a species is a group of individuals that differ from all other individuals in displaying certain well-marked and tolerably constant characters, which they transmit to their offspring.