Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/72

---

stance that the form and dimensions of the wings, tail, beak, and feet offer the best generic and specific characters and can all be easily measured and compared. The most systematic observations on the individual variation of birds have been made by Mr. J. A. Allen, in his remarkable memoir: "On the Mammals and Winter Birds of East Florida, with an examination of certain assumed specific characters in Birds, and a sketch of the Bird Faunæ of Eastern North America," published in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1871. In this work exact measurements are given of all the chief external parts of a large number of species of common American birds, from twenty to sixty or more specimens of each species being measured, so that we are able to determine with some precision the nature and extent of the variation that usually occurs. Mr. Allen says: "The facts of the case show that a variation of from 15 to 20 per cent in general size, and an equal degree of variation in the relative size of different parts, may be ordinarily expected among specimens of the same species and sex, taken at the same locality, while in some cases the variation is even greater than this." He then goes on to show that each part varies to a considerable extent independently of the other parts; so that when the size varies, the proportions of all the parts vary, often to a much greater amount. The wing and tail, for example, besides varying in length, vary in the proportionate length of each feather, and this causes their outline to vary considerably in shape. The bill also varies in length, width, depth, and curvature. The tarsus varies in length, as does each toe separately and independently; and all this not to a minute degree requiring very careful measurement to detect it at all, but to an amount easily seen without any measurement, as it averages one-sixth of the whole length and often reaches one-fourth. In twelve species of common perching birds the wing varied (in from twenty-five to thirty specimens) from 14 to 21 per cent of the mean length, and the tail from 13.8 to 23.4 per cent. The variation of the form of the wing can be very easily tested by noting which feather is longest, which next in length, and so on, the respective feathers being indicated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., com-