Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/101

Rh ACCLIMATISATION 85 African and Amazonian parrots, Bengal parroquets, four species of %viiite and rose crested cockatoos, and two species of crimson lories, have been at large for many years. Several of these birds have bred, and they almost all live in the woods the whole year through, refusing to take shelter in a house constructed for their use. Even when the thermometer fell 6 below zero, all appeared in good spirits and vigorous health. Some of these birds have lived thus exposed for nearly twenty years, enduring our cold easterly winds, rain, hail, and snow, all through the winter, a marvellous contrast to the equable equatorial temperature (hardly ever less than 70) which many of them had been accustomed to for the first year or years of their existence. Mr Jenner Weir records somewhat similar facts in the Zoologist for 1865 (p. 9-ill). He keeps many small birds in an open aviary in his garden at Blackheath, and among these are the Java rice bird (Padda oryzivora), two West African weaver birds (Ilypliantornis textor and Euplectes sanguinirostris), and the blue bird of the southern United States (Spiza cyanea). These denizens of the tropics prove quite as hardy as our native birds, having lived during the severest winters without the slightest protection against the cold, even when their drinking water had to be repeatedly melted. Hardly any group of Mammalia is more exclusively tropical than the Quadrumana, yet there is reason to believe that, if other conditions are favourable, some of them can withstand a considerable degree of cold. The Semnopithecus tckistaceus was found by Captain Huttou at an elevation of 11,000 feet in the Himalayas, leaping actively among fir- trees whose branches were laden with snow-wreaths. In Abyssinia a troop of dog-faced baboons were observed by Mr Blandford at 9000 feet above the sea. We may there fore conclude that the restriction of the monkey tribe to warm latitudes is probably determined by other causes than &quot;emperature alone. Similar indications are given by the fact of closely allied jpecies inhabiting very extreme climates. The recently extinct Siberian mammoth and woolly rhinoceros were closely allied to species now inhabiting tropical regions exclusively. Wolves and foxes are found alike in the coldest and hottest parts of the earth, as are closely allied species of falcons, owls, sparrows, and numerous genera of waders and aquatic birds. A consideration of these and many analogous facts might induce us to suppose that, among the higher animals at (east, there is little constitutional adaptation to climate, and that in their case acclimatisation is not required. But there are numerous examples of domestic animals which show that such adaptation does exist in other cases. The 7ak of Thibet cannot long survive in the plains of India, or even on the hills below a certain altitude ; and that this is due to climate, and not to the increased density of the atmosphere, is shown by the fact that the same animal appears to thrive well in Europe, and even breeds there readily. The Newfoundland dog will not live in India, and the Spanish breed of fowls in this country suffer more from frost than most others. When we get lower in the scale the adaptation is often more marked. Snakes, which are so abundant in warm countries, diminish rapidly as ve go north, and wholly cease at lat. G2. Most insects are also very susceptible to cold, and seem to be adapted to very narrow limits of temperature. From the foregoing facts and observations we may con clude, firstly, that some plants and many animals are not constitutionally adapted to the climate of their native country only, but are capable of enduring and flourishing under a more or less extensive range of temperature and other climatic conditions ; and, secondly, that most plants and some animals are, more or less closely, adapted to climates similar to those of their native habitats. In order to domesticate or naturalise the former class in countries not extremely differing from that from which the species was brought, it will not be necessary to acclimatise, in the strict sense of the word. In the case of the latter class, however, acclimatisation is a necessary preliminary to naturalisation, and in many cases to useful domestica tion, and ve have therefore to inquire whether it is possible. Acclimatisation l&amp;gt;y Individual Adaptation. It is evi dent that acclimatisation may occur (if it occurs at all) in two ways, either by modifying the constitution of the individual submitted to the new conditions, or by the production of offspring which may be better adapted to those conditions than their parents. The alteration of the constitution of individuals in this direction is not easy to detect, and its possibility has been denied by many writers. Mr Darwin believes, however, that there are indications that it occasionally occurs in plants, where it can be best observed, owing to the circumstance that so many plants are propagated by cuttings or buds, which really continue the existence of the same individual almost indefinitely. He adduces the example of vines taken to the West Indies from Madeira, which have been found to succeed better than those taken directly from France. But in most cases habit, however prolonged, appears to have little effect on the constitution of the individual, and the fact has no doubt led to the opinion that acclimatisation is impossible. There is indeed little or no evidence to show that any animal to which a new climate is at first prejudicial can be so acclimatised by habit that, after subjection to it for a few or many seasons, it may live as healthily and with as little care as in its native country ; yet we may, on general principles, believe that under proper conditions such accli matisation would take place. In his Principles of Biology (chap, v.), Mr Herbert Spencer has shown that every organ and every function of living beings undergoes modification to a limited extent under the stimulus of any new con ditions, and that the modification is almost always such as to produce an adaptation to those conditions. We may feel pretty sure, therefore, that if robust and healthy individuals are chosen for the experiment, and if the change they are subjected to is not too great, a real individual adaptation to the new conditions that is, a more or less complete acclimatisation will be brought about. If now animals thus modified are bred from, we know that their descendants will inherit the modification. They will thus start more favourably, and being subject to the influence of the same or a slightly more extreme climate during their whole lives, the acclimatisation will be carried a step further; and there seems no reason to doubt that, by this process alone, if cautiously and patiently carried out, most animals which breed freely in confinement could in time be acclimatised in almost any inhabited country. There is, however, a much more potent agent, which renders the process of adaptation almost a certainty. Acclimatisation by Variation. A mass of evidence exists showing that variations of every conceivable kind occur among the offspring of all plants and animals, and that, in particular, constitutional variations are by no means un common. Among cultivated plants, for example, hardier and more tender varieties often arise. The following cases are given by Mr Darwin : Among the numerous fruit-trees raised in North America, some are well adapted to the climate of the Northern States and Canada, while others only succeed well in the Southern States. Adaptation of this kind is sometimes very close, so that, for example, few English varieties of wheat will thrive in Scotland. Seed- wheat from India produced a miserable crop when planted