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.