esent a greater
diversity of colour than any other plant known to me; yet on procuring
seed of five named German varieties of _D. consolida_, only nine plants
out of ninety-four were false; and the seedlings of six varieties of
_D. ajacis_ were true in the same manner and degree as with the stocks
above described. A distinguished botanist maintains that the annual
species of Delphinium are always self-fertilised; therefore I may
mention that thirty-two flowers on a branch of _D. consolida_, enclosed
in a net, yielded twenty-seven capsules, with an average of 17.2 seed
in each; whilst five flowers, under the same net, which were
artificially fertilised, in the same manner as must be effected by bees
during their incessant visits, yielded five capsules with an average of
35.2 fine seed; and this shows that the agency of insects is necessary
for the full fertility of this plant. Analogous facts could be given
with respect to the crossing of many other flowers, such as carnations,
&c., of which the varieties fluctuate much in colour.

As with flowers, so with our domesticated animals, no character is more
variable than colour, and probably in no animal more so than with the
horse. Yet with a little care in breeding, it appears that races of any
colour might soon be formed. Hofacker gives the result of matching two
hundred and sixteen mares of four different colours with like-coloured
stallions, without regard to the colour of their ancestors; and of the
two hundred and sixteen colts born, eleven alone failed to inherit the
colour of their parents: Autenrieth and Ammon assert that, after two
generations, colts of a uniform colour are produced with certainty.[56]

In a few rare cases peculiarities fail to be inherited, apparently from the
force of inheritance being too strong. I have been assured by breeders of
the canary-bird that to get a good {22} jonquil-coloured bird it does not
answer to pair two jonquils, as the colour then comes out too strong, or is
even brown. So again, if two crested canaries are paired, the young birds
rarely inherit this character:[57] for in crested birds a narrow space of
bare skin is left on the back of the head, where the feathers are up-turned
to form the crest, and, when both parents are thus characterised, the
bareness becomes excessive, and the crest itself fails to be developed. Mr.
Hewitt, spe