true; but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions,
the structure, for instance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak,
and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees.
In the case of the misseltoe, which draws its nourishment from certain
trees, which has seeds that must be transported by certain birds, and which
has flowers with separate sexes absolutely requiring the agency of certain
insects to bring pollen from one flower to the other, it is equally
preposterous to account for the structure of this parasite, with its
relations to several distinct organic beings, by the effects of external
conditions, or of habit, or of the volition of the plant itself.

The author of the 'Vestiges of Creation' would, I presume, say that, after
a certain unknown number of {4} generations, some bird had given birth to a
woodpecker, and some plant to the missletoe, and that these had been
produced perfect as we now see them; but this assumption seems to me to be
no explanation, for it leaves the case of the coadaptations of organic
beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life, untouched
and unexplained.

It is, therefore, of the highest importance to gain a clear insight into
the means of modification and coadaptation. At the commencement of my
observations it seemed to me probable that a careful study of domesticated
animals and of cultivated plants would offer the best chance of making out
this obscure problem. Nor have I been disappointed; in this and in all
other perplexing cases I have invariably found that our knowledge,
imperfect though it be, of variation under domestication, afforded the best
and safest clue. I may venture to express my conviction of the high value
of such studies, although they have been very commonly neglected by
naturalists.

From these considerations, I shall devote the first chapter of this
Abstract to Variation under Domestication. We shall thus see that a large
amount of hereditary modification is at least possible; and, what is
equally or more important, we shall see how great is the power of man in
accumulating by his Selection successive slight variations. I will then
pass on to the variability of species in a state of nature; but I shall,
unfortunately, be compelled to treat this subject far too briefly, as it
can be treated properly only by giving long catalogues of facts. We shall,
however, be enabled to discuss what circumstan