No part of the organisation escapes the tendency to vary. The variations generally affect parts of small vital or physiological importance, but so it is with the differences which exist between closely-allied species. In these unimportant characters there is often a greater difference between the breeds of the same species than between the natural species of the same genus, as Isidore Geoffroy has shown to be the case with size, and as is often the case with the colour, texture, form, etc., of the hair, feathers, horns, and other dermal appendages.
It has often been asserted that important parts never vary under domestication, but this is a complete error. Look at the skull of the pig in any one of the highly improved breeds, with the occipital condyles and other parts greatly modified; or look at that of the niata ox. Or, again, in the several breeds of the rabbit, observe the elongated skull, with the differently shaped occipital foramen, atlas, and other cervical vertebrae. The whole shape of the brain, together with the skull, has been modified in Polish fowls; in other breeds of the fowl the number of the vertebrae and the forms of the cervical vertebrae have been changed. In certain pigeons the shape of the lower jaw, the relative length of the tongue, the size of the nostrils and eyelids, the number and shape of the ribs, the form and size of the oesophagus, have all varied. In certain quadrupeds the length of the intestines has been much increased or diminished. With plants we see wonderful differences in the stones of various fruits. In the Cucurbitaceae several highly important characters have varied, such as the sessile position of the stigmas on the ovarium, the position of the carpels, and the projection of the ovarium out of the receptacle. But it would be useless to run through the many facts given in the earlier chapters.
It is notorious how greatly the mental disposition, tastes, habits, consensual movements, loquacity or silence, and tone of voice have varied and been inherited in our domesticated animals. The dog offers the most striking instance of changed mental attributes, and these differences cannot be accounted for by descent from distinct wild types.
New characters may appear and old ones disappear at any stage of development, being inherited at a corresponding stage. We see this in the difference between the eggs, the down on the chickens and the first plumage of the various breeds of the fowl; and still more plainly in the differences between the caterpillars and cocoons of the various breeds of the silk-moth. These facts, simple as they appear, throw light on the differences between the larval and adult states of allied natural species, and on the whole great subject of embryology. New characters first appearing late in life are apt to become attached exclusively to that sex in which they first arose, or they may be developed in a much higher degree in this than in the other sex; or again, after having become attached to one sex, they may be transferred to the opposite sex. These facts, and more especially the circumstance that new characters seem to be particularly liable, from some unknown cause, to become attached to the male sex, have an important bearing on the acquirement of secondary sexual characters by animals in a state of nature.
It has sometimes been said that our domestic races do not differ in constitutional peculiarities, but this cannot be maintained. In our improved cattle, pigs, etc., the period of maturity, including that of the second dentition, has been much hastened. The period of gestation varies much, and has been modified in a fixed manner in one or two cases. In some breeds of poultry and pigeons the period at which the down and the first plumage are acquired, differs. The number of moults through which the larvae of silk-moths pass, varies. The tendency to fatten, to yield much milk, to produce many young or eggs at a birth or during life, differs in different breeds. We find different degrees of adaptation to climate, and different tendencies to certain diseases, to the attacks of parasites, and to the action of certain vegetable poisons.