need> skinned toes. If for some unknown cause he found it would
advantage a plant, which <?> like most plants is occasionally visited by
bees &c.: if that plant's seed were occasionally eaten by birds and were
then carried on to rotten trees, he might select trees with fruit more
agreeable to such birds as perched, to ensure their being carried to
trees; if he perceived those birds more often dropped the seeds, he
might well have selected a bird who would <illegible> rotten trees or
[gradually select plants which <he> had proved to live on less and less
rotten trees]. Who, seeing how plants vary in garden, what blind foolish
man has done{52} in a few years, will deny an all-seeing being in
thousands of years could effect (if the Creator chose to do so), either
by his own direct foresight or by intermediate means,--which will
represent <?> the creator of this universe. Seems usual means. Be it
remembered I have nothing to say about life and mind and _all_ forms
descending from one common type{53}. I speak of the variation of the
existing great divisions of the organised kingdom, how far I would go,
hereafter to be seen.

{50} The author may possibly have taken the case of the woodpecker
from Buffon, _Histoire Nat. des Oiseaux_, T. vii. p. 3, 1780, where
however it is treated from a different point of view. He uses it
more than once, see for instance _Origin_, Ed. i. pp. 3, 60, 184,
vi. pp. 3, 76, 220. The passage in the text corresponds with a
discussion on the woodpecker and the mistletoe in _Origin_, Ed. i.
p. 3, vi. p. 3.

{51} This illustration occurs in the _Origin_, Ed. i. pp. 90, 91,
vi. pp. 110, 111.

{52} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 83, vi. p. 102, where the word
_Creator_ is replaced by _Nature_.

{53} Note in the original. "Good place to introduce, saying reasons
hereafter to be given, how far I extend theory, say to all
mammalia--reasons growing weaker and weaker."

Before considering whether <there> be any natural means of selection, and
secondly (which forms the 2nd Part of this sketch) the far more
important point whether the characters and relations of animated
<things> are such as favour the idea of wild species being races <?>
descended from a common stock, as the varieties of potato or dahlia or
cattle having so descended, let us consider probable character of
[selected races] wild varieties.

_Natural Selection._ De Candolle's w