Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/103

Rh ACCLIMATISATION 87 species or closely allied forms inhabiting the surrounding islands; the species fi,und in Celebes possess a peculiar form of wing, quite distinct from that of the same or closely allied species of adjacent islands; and, lastly, numerous species which have tailed wings in India and the western islands of the Archipelago, gradually lose the tail as we proceed eastward to New Guinea and the Pacific. Many of these curious modifications may, it is true, be due to other causes than climate only, but they serve to show how powerfully and mysteriously local conditions affect the form and structure of both plants and animals ; and they render it probable that changes of constitution are also continually produced, although we have, in the majority of cases, no means of detecting them. It is also impossible to determine how far the effects described are produced by spontaneous favourable variations or by the direct action of local conditions; but it is probable that in every case both causes are concerned, although in constantly varying proportions. The Influence of Heredity. Adaptation by variation would, however, be a slow and uncertain process, and might for considerable periods of time cease to act, did not heredity come into play. This is the tendency of every organism to produce its like, or more exactly, to produce a set of riewf orms varying slightly from it in many directions a group of which the parent form is the centre. If now one of the most ex treme of these variations is taken, it is found to become the centre of a new set of variations ; and by continually taking the extreme in the same direction, an increasing variation in that direction can be effected, until checked by becoming so great that it interferes with the healthy action of the organism, or is in any other way prejudicial. It is also found that acquired constitutional peculiarities are equally hereditary; go that by a combination of those two modes of variation any desired adaptation may be effected with greater rapidity. The manner in which the form or constitution of an organism can be made to change con tinuously in one direction, by means of variations which are indefinite and in all directions, is often misunderstood. It may perhaps be illustrated by showing how a tree or grove of trees might, by natural causes, be caused to travel during successive generations in a definite course. The tree has branches radiating out from its stem to perhaps twenty feet on every side. Seeds are produced on the extremities of all these branches, drop to the ground, and produce seedlings, which, if untouched, would form a ring of young trees around the parent. But cattle crop off every seedling as soon as it rises above the ground, and none can ever arrive at maturity. If, however, one side is protected from the cattle, young trees will grow up on that side only. This protection may exist in the case of a grove of trees which we may suppose to occupy the whole space between two deep ravines, the cattle existing on the lower side of the wood only. In this case young trees would reach maturity on the upper side of the wood, while on the lower side the trees would successively die, fall, and rot away, no young ones taking their place. If this state of things continued unchanged for some centuries, the wood might march regularly up the side of the mountain till it occupied a position many miles away from where it once stood ; and this would have taken place, not because more seed was produced on one side than the other (there might even be very much less), nor because soil or climate were better on the upper side (they might be worse), nor because any intelligent being chose which trees should be allowed to live and which should be destroyed ; but simply because, for a series of generations, the conditions permitted the existence of young trees on one side, and wholly prevented it on the other. Just in an analogous way animals or plants are caused to vary in definite directions, either by the influence of natural agencies, which render existence impossible for those that vary in any other direction, or by the action of the judicious breeder, who carefully selects favourable variations to be the parents of his future stock ; and in either case the rejected variations may far outnumber those which are preserved. Evidence has been adduced by Mr Darwin to show that the tendency to vary is itself hereditary; so that, so far from variations coming to an end, as some persons imagine, the more extensively variation has occurred in any species in the past, the more likely it is to occur in the future. There is also reason to believe that individuals which have varied largely from their parents in a special direction will have a greater tendency to produce offspring varying in that direction than in any other ; so that the facilities for adaptation, that is, for the production and increase of favourable variations in certain definite directions, are far greater than the facilities for locomotion in one direction in the hypothetical illustration just given. Selection and Survival of the Fittest as Agents in Natura lisation. We may now take it as an established fact, that varieties of animals and plants occur, both in domesticity and in a state of nature, which are better or worse adapted to special climates. There is no positive evidence that the influence of new climatal conditions on the parents has any tendency to produce variations in the offspring better adapted to such conditions, although some of the facts mentioned in the preceding sections render it probable that such may be the case. Neither does it appear that this class of variations are very frequent. It is, however, certain that whenever any animal or plant is largely propagated con stitutional variations will arise, and some of these will be better adapted than others to the climatal and other conditions of the locality. In a state of nature, every recurring severe winter or otherwise unfavourable season, weeds out those individuals of tender constitution or imperfect structure which may have got on very well during favourable years, and it is thus that the adaptation of the species to the climate in which it has to exist is kept up. Under domestication the same thing occurs by what Mr Darwin has termed &quot;unconscious selection.&quot; Each culti vator seeks out the kinds of plants best suited to his soil and climate, and rejects those which are tender or otherwise unsuitable. The farmer breeds from such of his stock aa he finds to thrive best with him, and gets rid of those which suffer from cold, damp, or disease. A more or less close adaptation to local conditions is thus brought about, and breeds or races are produced which are sometimes liable to deterioration on removal even to a short distance in the same country, as in numerous cases quoted by Mr Darwin (Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. p. 273). The Method of Acclimatisation. Taking into considera tion the foregoing facts and illustrations, it may be con sidered as proved 1st, That habit has little (though it appears to have some) definite effect in adapting the constitution of animals to a new climate ; but that it has a decided, though still slight, influence in plants when, by the process of propagation by buds, shoots, or grafts, the individual can be kept under its influence for long periods ; Id, That the offspring of both plants and animals vary in their constitutional adaptation to climate, and that this adaptation may be kept up and increased by means of heredity; and, 3d, That great and sudden changes of climate often check reproduction even when the health of the individuals does not appear to suffer. In order, therefore, to have the best chance of acclimatising any animal or plant in a climate very dissimilar from that of its native country, and in which it has been proved that the species in question cannot live and maintain itself