lone proves that these qualities are purely
individual, and not specific, for the pips or stones of these excellent
fruits bring forth the original wild stock, so that they do not form
species essentially different from this. Man, however, by means of
grafting, produces what may be called secondary species, which he can
propagate at will; for the bud or small branch which he engrafts upon
the stock contains within itself the individual quality which cannot be
transmitted by seed, but which needs only to be developed in order to
bring forth the same fruits as the individual from which it was taken in
order to be grafted on to the wild stock. The wild stock imparts none of
its bad qualities to the bud, for it did not contribute to the forming
thereof, being, as it were, a wet nurse, and no true mother.

"In the case of animals, the greater number of those features which
appear individual, do not fail to be transmitted to offspring, in the
same way as specific characters. It was easier then for man to produce
an effect upon the natures of animals than of plants. The different
breeds in each animal species are variations that have become constant
and hereditary, while vegetable species on the other hand present no
variations that can be depended on to be transmitted with certainty.

"In the species of the fowl and the pigeon alone, a large number of
breeds have been formed quite recently, which are all constant, and in
other species we daily improve breeds by crossing them. From time to
time we acclimatize and domesticate some foreign and wild species. All
these examples of modern times prove that man has but tardily discovered
the extent of his own power, and that he is not even yet sufficiently
aware of it. It depends entirely upon the exercise of his intelligence;
the more, therefore, he observes and cultivates nature the more means he
will find of making her subservient to him, and of drawing new riches
from her bosom without diminishing the treasures of her inexhaustible
fecundity."[132]

_Birds._

In the preface to his volumes upon birds, Buffon says that these are not
only much more numerous than quadrupeds, but that they also exhibit a
far larger number of varieties, and individual variations.

"The diversities," he declares, "which arise from the effects of climate
and food, of domestication, captivity, transportation, voluntary and
compulsory migration--all the causes in fact of alteration and
degeneration-