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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



pure either in the direction of the sheep or the 

 ancon ; no blending or mixture of the two races 

 ever after taking place.. The law of likeness thus 

 holds good in its ordinary operation, but takes 

 no account and gives no explanation of the ab- 

 struse and unknown causes arising from the law 

 of variation, and on which the development of 

 the first ancon sheep depended. 



The heredity and transmission of mere influ- 

 ences, which have been simply impressed upon 

 either parent, and which form no part of the par- 

 ent's original constitution, presens some of the 

 most marvelous, as well as some of the most in- 

 explicable, features of animal and plant develop- 

 ment. Thus, an Italian naturalist, taking the 

 pollen or fertilizing matter from the stamens of 

 the lemon, fertilized the flowers of the orange. 

 The result was, that one of the oranges, subse- 

 quently produced, exhibited a portion of its sub- 

 stance which was not only colored like the lemon, 

 but preserved the distinct flavor of the latter fruit. 

 Changes of similar nature have been produced in 

 the fruit of one species of melon by fertilizing the 

 flowers with pollen of a different species, and thus 

 producing, through the operation of the law of 

 likeness, a blending of the character of the two 

 species. Equally certain, as regards their effects 

 on the young forms of animals, are the effects of 

 the transmission of influences or qualities im- 

 pressed on the parents. The birth of a hybrid 

 foal, half quagga, half horse, has been of sufficient 

 influence to transmit to the subsequent and pure 

 progeny of the mother the banded stripes or 

 markings of the quagga ; the influence of the first 

 male parent and offspring extending, as it were, 

 to the unconnected and succeeding progeny. 



The case of the human subject presents no 

 exceptions to the laws of heredity and of heredi- 

 tary influences, since the common experience of 

 every-day life familiarizes us with the transmis- 

 sion of the constitution of body and mind from 

 parent to child; while the careful investigation 

 of the family history of noted artists, sculptors, 

 poets, musicians, and men of science, clearly 

 proves that the qualities for which they are or 

 were distinguished have, in most cases, been 

 transmitted to them as a natural legacy and in- 

 heritance — so fully does science corroborate the 

 popular saying that qualities of body and mind 

 " run in the blood." 



. A notable case of the operation of the law of 

 likeness in perpetuating a singular condition of 

 body is afforded by the history of the Lambert 

 family. Edward Lambert was exhibited in 1*731, 

 at the age of fourteen, before the Royal Society 



of London, on account of the peculiar condition 

 of his skin, which was covered with horny scales ; 

 these appendages, in their most typical develop- 

 ment, according to one account, " looking and 

 rustling like the bristles or quills of a hedgehog 

 shorn off within an inch of the skin." In 1757 

 the "porcupine-man," as Lambert was called, 

 again exhibited himself in London. He had in 

 the interim suffered from small-pox ; the disease 

 having had the effect of temporarily destroying 

 the roughened skin, which, however, reappeared 

 during his convalescence. Lambert's children 

 presented the same peculiar skin-development, 

 and the correlation between parent and offspring 

 in this case was most marked, even in the date of 

 the first appearance of the abnormality, since the 

 skin developed its scales in each of his children, 

 as in himself, about nine weeks after birth. In 

 Lambert's grandchildren this peculiarity was also 

 well marked ; two brothers, grandsons of Lam- 

 bert, being exhibited in Germany on account of 

 their peculiar body-covering. 



The history of the Kelleias, a Maltese family, 

 is no less instructive than that of Lambert, as 

 tending to prove the distinct and specific opera- 

 tion of the laws of heredity. Gratio Kelleia — 

 whose history is given by Reaumur in his " Art 

 de faire eclore les Poulets," as a kind of lesson 

 in the rearing of poultry — was a -Maltese, who 

 possessed six fingers on each hand and six toes 

 on each foot. His parents possessed the ordinary 

 number of digits, and hence the law of variation 

 may be regarded as operating in the case of the 

 human subject, as in the ancon sheep and in 

 lower animals still, in producing sudden and spon- 

 taneous deviations from the normal type of a 

 species or race. Kelleia's family consisted of 

 four children, the mother exhibiting no abnor- 

 mality of hands or feet. The eldest son, Salvator, 

 exactly resembled his father. George, the second 

 son, had five fingers and five toes, but his hands 

 and feet were deformed. Andre, the third son, ex- 

 hibited no abnormality; and Marie, the daughter, 

 had deformed thumbs. The operation of the law 

 of heredity was not especially marked in this first 

 generation, but its effects were of very striking 

 character in the second. To begin with the 

 family of Andre, none of his children exhibited 

 any divergence from the normal type. Of Marie's 

 family, only one, a boy, had six toes ; his fingers 

 being normal. Of George's four children, one 

 boy possessed hands and feet of ordinary type ; 

 one girl had six fingers on each hand, but, curi- 

 ously enough, six toes on the right foot only ; 

 while the remaining two girls had each six fingers 



