These tendencies, I do not doubt, may be mastered more or less
completely by natural selection: thus a family of stags once existed with
an antler only on one side; and if this had been of any great use to the
breed, it might probably have been rendered permanent by natural selection.
Homologous parts, as has been remarked by some authors, tend to cohere;
this is often seen in monstrous plants: and nothing is more common than
the union of homologous parts in normal structures, as in the union of the
petals into a tube. Hard parts seem to affect the form of adjoining soft
parts; it is believed by some authors that with birds the diversity in the
shape of the pelvis causes the remarkable diversity in the shape of the
kidneys. Others believe that the shape of the pelvis in the human mother
influences by pressure the shape of the head of the child. In snakes,
according to Schlegel, the shape of the body and the manner of swallowing
determine the position and form of several of the most important viscera.
The nature of the bond is frequently quite obscure. M. Is. Geoffroy St.
Hilaire has forcibly remarked that certain malconformations frequently, and
that others rarely, coexist without our being able to assign any reason.
What can be more singular than the relation in cats between complete
whiteness and blue eyes with deafness, or between the tortoise-shell colour
and the female sex; or in pigeons, between their feathered feet and skin
betwixt the outer toes, or between the presence of more or less down on the
young pigeon when first hatched, with the future colour of its plumage; or,
again, the relation between the hair and the teeth in the naked Turkish
dog, though here no doubt homology comes into play? With respect to this
latter case of correlation, I think it can hardly be accidental that the
two orders of mammals which are most abnormal in their dermal covering,
viz.
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