Many facts clearly show how eminently susceptible
the reproductive system is to very slight changes in the surrounding
conditions. Nothing is more easy than to tame an animal, and few things
more difficult than to get it to breed freely under confinement, even when
the male and female unite. How many animals there are which will not
breed, though kept in an almost free state in their native country! This
is generally, but erroneously attributed to vitiated instincts. Many
cultivated plants display the utmost vigour, and yet rarely or never seed!
In some few cases it has been discovered that a very trifling change, such
as a little more or less water at some particular period of growth, will
determine whether or not a plant will produce seeds. I cannot here give
the details which I have collected and elsewhere published on this curious
subject; but to show how singular the laws are which determine the
reproduction of animals under confinement, I may mention that carnivorous
animals, even from the tropics, breed in this country pretty freely under
confinement, with the exception of the plantigrades or bear family, which
seldom produce young; whereas, carnivorous birds, with the rarest
exception, hardly ever lay fertile eggs. Many exotic plants have pollen
utterly worthless, in the same condition as in the most sterile hybrids.
When, on the one hand, we see domesticated animals and plants, though often
weak and sickly, breeding freely under confinement; and when, on the other
hand, we see individuals, though taken young from a state of nature
perfectly tamed, long-lived, and healthy (of which I could give numerous
instances), yet having their reproductive system so seriously affected by
unperceived causes as to fail to act, we need not be surprised at this
system, when it does act under confinement, acting irregularly, and
producing offspring somewhat unlike their parents.
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