in which Captain Owen has recorded his most instructive 
experience in connection with the cats of Mombas. 
“We often remarked that the cats, instead of fur, were covered 
with a coat of short and stiff hair, but always considered them to be 
a different species from those in England, and never had an idea that 
the mere change from the ship to the shore would effect so extra 
ordinary an alteration. A cat which we had brought from Algoa 
Bay, and which had retained the same appearance as at first, was 
landed at Mombas during one of our visits. Upon our return, a 
period of only eight weeks, it had undergone a complete metamor 
phosis, having parted with its sandy-coloured fur, and gained in 
return a coat of beautiful short white hair.”—(Narrative of Voyages 
io explore the shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar, vol. ii., 
p. 180.) 
Speaking of this story, Mr. Darwin says :— 
“All the cats in Mombas are covered with a short stiff hair instead 
of fur. It is natural to suppose that this is due to the climate, and 
we are able in this case almost to demonstrate that it is so.”—(The 
Variation, vol. i., p. 46.) 
Several accounts have been published of the change which 
sheep imported from Europe undergo in the West Indies. 
“ Dr. Nicholson, of Antigua, informs me that after the third 
generation, the wool disappears from the whole body, except over 
the loins, and the animal then appears like a goat with a dirty door 
mat on its back.”—(The Variation, vol. i., p. 98.) 
“ Climate definitely influences the hairy covering of animals ; in 
the West Indies a great change is produced in the fleece of sheep in 
about three generations. Dr. Falconer states that the Thibet mastiff 
and goat, when brought down from the Himalaya to Kashmir, lose 
their fine wool. At Angora not only goats, but shepherd-dogs and 
cats, have fine fleecy hair, and Mr. Ainsworth attributes the thickness 
of the fleece to the severe winters, and its silky lustre to the hot 
summers. Burnes states positively that the Karakool sheep lose their 
peculiar black curled fleeces when removed into any other country.” 
{The Variation, vol. ii.,p. 278.) 
I have thus endeavoured to show that Natural Selection 
and transforming influence cannot co-operate nor co-exist 
in the world of nature, as it is known to us ; and in the