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admission, that in certain families the hybrid offspring of ‹two› «many of the» species, are «sometimes» perfectly fertile in the first generation, when bred together: indeed in some few cases Mr Herbert found that the hybrids were decidedly more fertile, than either of their pure parents. There is no way to escape from the admission that the hybrids from some species of plants are fertile; except by declaring that no forms should be considered as a species, if it produces with another form, fertile offspring: but this is begging «the»

Transcription and apparatus copyright the American Museum of Natural History