176 BLASTOGENIC VARIATIONS. 



striping on the legs, strongly resembled the quagga. 

 Other cases have been quoted in support of this phe- 

 nomenon, but it is unnecessary to mention them here, 

 for none of them are absolutely convincing. The 

 reader who wishes for details of these cases should con- 

 sult a useful paper by Finn.* In his Penycuik experi- 

 ments, Professor Ewart has made a number of attempts 

 to obtain evidence of the phenomenon, but so far with 

 entirely negative results. Sir Everett Millais made a 

 considerably larger series of experiments, on a variety 

 of animals, but was equally unsuccessful. Many Ger- 

 man breeders also believe telegony as yet unproven. 

 Finally, Professor Pearson f has shown that exact 

 statistical examination of appropriate data gives no 

 support whatever to the hypothesis. Pearson's method 

 of testing the question was to determine whether 

 younger children are more closely correlated to 

 their parents in respect of some character such as 

 stature, than older children. Supposing the male 

 parent were able to exert any influence on the ma- 

 ternal tissues, and so indirectly on the offspring, 

 then clearly this influence would be greater for the 

 younger children than for the older children. As 

 Pearson recognises, it is possible that telegony, if it 

 occurs at all, is due to the abnormal preservation of the 

 male sex cells of an earlier union, and in such a case his 

 method would afford no evidence one way or the other. 

 Probably, therefore, no such thing as telegony exists. 

 In any case it is so exceedingly rare that, as a possible 

 source of variations, it may be neglected. 



*Nat. Sci., vol. iii. p. 436. 

 f Proc. Roy. Soc. , Ix. p. 273. 



