Now, this is certainly a very remarkable circumstance; but I do not see
myself how it tells very strongly either one way or the other. I
think, in fact, that this argument in favour of recurrence to the
primitive type might prove a great deal too much for those who so
constantly bring it forward. For example, Mr. Darwin has very forcibly
urged, that nothing is commoner than if you examine a dun horse--and I
had an opportunity of verifying this illustration lately, while in the
islands of the West Highlands, where there are a great many dun
horses--to find that horse exhibit a long black stripe down his back,
very often stripes on his shoulder, and very often stripes on his
legs. I, myself, saw a pony of this description a short time ago, in a
baker's cart, near Rothesay, in Bute: it had the long stripe down the
back, and stripes on the shoulders and legs, just like those of the
Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra. Now, if we interpret the theory of
recurrence as applied to this case, might it not be said that here was
a case of a variation exhibiting the characters and conditions of an
animal occupying something like an intermediate position between the
Horse, the Ass, the Quagga, and the Zebra, and from which these had
been developed? In the same way with regard even to Man. Every
anatomist will tell you that there is nothing commoner, in dissecting
the human body, than to meet with what are called muscular
variations--that is, if you dissect two bodies very carefully, you will
probably find that the modes of attachment and insertion of the muscles
are not exactly the same in both, there being great peculiarities in
the mode in which the muscles are arranged; and it is very singular,
that in some dissections of the human body you will come upon
arrangements of the muscles very similar indeed to the same parts in the
Apes. Is the conclusion in that case to be, that this is like the
black bars in the case of the Pigeon, and that it indicates a
recurrence to the primitive type from which the animals have been