But one of the most unhappy of Mr. Swainson's speculations is that wherein he represents the _Bos Scoticus_, or wild ox, as the type of "an _untameable savage_ race, which preserves, even in the domestication of a park, all that fierceness which the ancient writers attributed to the wild bulls of Britain and the European continent. Let those who imagine that the influence of civilization, of care, and of judicious treatment, will alter the natural instinct of animals, look to this as a palpable refutation of their doctrine. [!] Where is that boasted power of man over nature? Where the fruits of long-continued efforts and fostering protection? [!!] The _Bos Scoticus_ is as untameable now as it was centuries ago, simply for this reason, that it is in accordance with an unalterable law of nature; a law by which one type in every group is to represent the worst passions of mankind--fierceness, or cruelty, or horror." [!!!]
Who would for a moment imagine that all this grandiloquence is bestowed upon an animal, which is so far from being fierce and untameable, that young ones, taken and reared with ordinary cattle, become, even in the first generation, as tame as domestic animals? [See account of Chillingham White Cattle, p. 140.]
For a more complete satisfaction of his thought, the reader is referred to Mr. Swainson's volume "On the Natural History and Classification of Quadrupeds," p. 274, where he has given us an incoherent abstract of Colonel Smith's article on the _Bovinæ_, without, however, making the least attempt to verify the statements there recorded. The descriptions and characteristics are avowedly Colonel Smith's; but, in justice to the latter gentleman, it must be added, that the disquisitions on the circular succession of forms, and the analogical relations, are entirely Mr. Swainson's.
What constitutes a species? And how far do the limits of varieties extend? Cuvier, who is, perhaps, the best authority we can have upon this subject, in defining a species, says:--_A species comprehends all the individuals which descend from each other or from a common parentage, and those which resemble them as much as they do each other._ Thus, the different races which they have generated from them are considered as varieties but of one species. Our observations, therefore, respecting the differences between the ancestors and the descendants, are the only rules by which we can judge on this subject; all other considerations being merely hypothetical, and destitute of proof. Taking the word _variety_ in this limited sense, we observe that the differences which constitute this variety depend upon determinate circumstances, and that their extent increases in proportion to the intensity of the circumstances which occasion them.