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Some atavisms can be produced in the laboratory. The most amazing of these is that paragon of rarity, hen’s teeth. In 1980, E. J. Kollar and C. Fisher at the University of Connecticut combined the tissues of two species, grafting the tissue lining the mouth of a chicken embryo on top of tissue from the jaw of a…
And first, for those things which seem common. Let men bear in mind that hitherto they have been accustomed to do no more than refer and adapt the causes of things which rarely happen to such as happen frequently, while of those which happen frequently they never ask the cause, but take them as they are for granted…
The most conspicuous example of the first class was Aristotle, who corrupted natural philosophy by his logic: fashioning the world out of categories; assigning to the human soul, the noblest of substances, a genus from words of the second intention; doing the business of density and rarity (which is to make bodies of…
Each branch of natural history study demands its special abilities: the superior ear of the birdwatcher, the attention to minute detail of the entomologist, the courage of the herpetologist wading into swamps full of poisonous snakes. But some “field skills” are nearly ubiquitous. Perhaps the most important are…