Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., on the question of hybridity in animals : considered in reference to the unity of the human species / by Samuel George Morton.

  • Morton, Samuel George, 1799-1851.
Date:
1850
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., on the question of hybridity in animals : considered in reference to the unity of the human species / by Samuel George Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    seem necessary to add to it. Some further examples, however, may not be inappropriate on the present occasion. You yourself inform me that you have in your possession the mounted skins of two hybrid hares, between the American gray rabbit, Lepus syl- vaticus, and the marsh hare, Lepus palustris. In an obliging letter to me, you make the following remark: At the time of finding these ani- mals, I supposed they would prove to belong to an undescribed species; but I am now quite sure that they are the hybrid product of the above named hares. I believe this is one of the first fully authenticated ex- amples of hybridity in the wild state that has been noticed on our continent, and I have great pleasure in referring to you for the fact. The species of Birds are so vastly more numerous than those of quadrupeds, that it is among these that we should expect a correspond- ing frequency of hybrid productions. In addition to the extended series embraced in my Essay, I now submit the following additional examples all of which occur in the wild state. The Tetrao urogallus, or wood-grouse, breeds with the black-grouse, Tetrix, and the hybrids are called in Sweden Racklehanen. It is, indeed, so common in that country and in Norway, that among a single lot of grouse brought thence to London for sale, Mr. Yarrell detected no less than seven of these hybrids. It was long regarded by natural- ists as a distinct species under the name of Tetrao medius* but it is •now pretty generally admitted to be a mule bird. I h?.ve examined two of them in the Wilson Collection, in the Academy of Natural Sci- ences of Philadelphia ; and similar examples are common in all ornitho- logical cabinets. The celebrated Temminck, however, considers the Tetrao medius a true species independently of its exterior characteristics : first, because it is produced in the wild state, and secondly, because the forests of northern Europe, in which it is found, are equally peopled by both the species of which this bird is the supposed hybrid. But these objections are no longer availing; for the concurrent testimony of all the later ornithologists proves this bird to be a mixture of two species, and con- iirms the opinion of Linnaeus, published a century ago and expressed in his name of Tetrao hybridus. It would be difficult to prove that these cross breeds are prolific inter se, but that they are so with the parent stock may be safely inferred from the many grades of interme- diate plumage ; and it is a curious fact that Klein, in his ova avium> * Pigeons et Gallinaces, hi., 131.