Cirripedes long appeared to me to
present, under this point of view, a case of great difficulty; but I have
been enabled, by a fortunate chance, to prove that two individuals, though
both are self-fertilising hermaphrodites, do sometimes cross.
It must have struck most naturalists as a strange anomaly that, both with
animals and plants, some species of the same family and even of the same
genus, though agreeing closely with each other in their whole organisation,
are hermaphrodites, and some unisexual. But if, in fact, all
hermaphrodites do occasionally intercross, the difference between them and
unisexual species is, as far as function is concerned, very small.
>From these several considerations and from the many special facts which I
have collected, but which I am unable here to give, it appears that with
animals and plants an occasional intercross between distinct individuals is
a very general, if not universal, law of nature.
CIRCUMSTANCES FAVOURABLE FOR THE PRODUCTION OF NEW FORMS THROUGH NATURAL
SELECTION.
This is an extremely intricate subject. A great amount of variability,
under which term individual differences are always included, will evidently
be favourable. A large number of individuals, by giving a better chance
within any given period for the appearance of profitable variations, will
compensate for a lesser amount of variability in each individual, and is, I
believe, a highly important element of success.
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