74
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
include all those of interest to Animal Husbandry: the corres-
ponding plants include the various crops with which Agriculture
is concerned, and the many esculent and oleraceous vegetables
raised by Horticulture all over the globe. To attempt to
enumerate them would weary the Club: to deal with selected
examples is unnecessary. With many of these symbiotic partners,
of Man we are familiar: authentic accounts of most of them are
readily accessible. It is however desirable to make the general
observation that one outstanding feature of the class as a whole
is the modification of characters and qualities that most of its
members have undergone. This modification has been due to
Man's application to them, mainly empirically and often un-
wittingly, of the biological principles of selection and breeding.
While it is true that in the case of a few captives, such as the
canary, the pig and the rabbit, Man has given as much biological
attention to them as to his symbiotic partners, this only lends
emphasis to the general rule that the absence of modification in
the characters and qualities of an organism in economic contact
with Man betokens enslavement, while the existence of such
modification bespeaks symbiotic partnership; also that the
greater the degree of modification the more intimate and long-
sustained the partnership.
Thanks to the modifications they have undergone the domestic
animals and cultivated plants we see now usually differ widely from
their wild originals: in some cases, as we saw a year ago regarding
certain forms of Wheat, and as we know to be the case with a
plant so familiar as the garden-tulip, the original wild form cannot
be traced with certainty. But while Biology cannot always say
where the modifications began, it can usually state with some
confidence how the modifications have come about. Armed with
this knowledge, Biology can now effect in a decade modification
more profound than Man formerly could effect in a century.
This circumstance enables Human Society to assess side by side
changes in crops like Barley and Wheat, whose partnership with
Man began in Neolithic days, and in crops like Rubber and
Sisal, whose symbiosis with Man began within living memory.
This only increases our surprise that Human Society, while
encouraging Man to improve the characters and qualities of use-
ful animals and plants, should regard with disfavour any effort
on the part of Man to improve his own characters and qualities