18 



INHEEITANCE. 



Chap. XHI. 



crossed tlie Japanese or masked breed with the common German 

 breed, and the offspring were intermediate in character. He then 

 re-crossed one of these mongrels with the pure Japanese, and in 

 the litter thns produced one of the young resembled in all its 

 characters a wild pig ; it had a long snout and upright ears, and 

 was striped on the back. It should be borne in mind that the 

 young of the Japanese breed are not striped, and that they have 

 a short muzzle and ears remarkably dependent. 



A similar tendency to the recovery of long lost characters 

 holds good even with the instincts of crossed animals. There 

 arc some breeds of fowls which are called " everlasting 

 la^^ers," because they have lost the instinct of incubation ; 

 and so rare is it for them to incubate that I have seen notices 

 published in works on poultry, when hens of such breeds have 

 taken to sit.^° Yet the aboriginal species was of course a 

 good incubator ; and with birds in a state of nature hardly 

 any instinct is so strong as this. Xoav, so many cases have 

 been recorded of the crossed offspring from two races, neither 

 of which are incubators, becoming first-rate sitters, that the 

 reappearance of this instinct must be attributed to reversion 

 from crossing. One author goes so far as to say, " that a cross 

 between two non- sitting varieties almost invariably produces 

 a mongrel that becomes broody, and sits with remarkable 

 steadiness." *^ Another author, after giving a striking ex- 

 ample, remarks that the fact can be explained only on the 

 principle that " two negatives make a positive." It cannot, 

 however, be maintained that hens produced from a cross 



** Cases of both Spanish and Polish 

 hens sitting are given in the ' PouUry 

 Chronicle,' 1855, vol. iii. p. 477. 



41 'The Poultry Book,' by Mr. 

 Tegetmeier, 1866, pp. 119, 163. The 

 author, who remarks on the two 

 negatives (' Journ. of Hort.,' 1862, 

 p. 325), states that two broods were 

 raised from a Spanish cock and Silver- 

 pencilled Hamburg hen, neither of 

 which are incubators, and no less 

 than seven out of eight hens in these 

 two broods " showed a perfect ob- 

 stinacy in sitting." The Rev. E. S. 

 Dixon (' Ornamental Poultry,' 1848, 

 p. 200) says that chickens reared 



from a cross between Golden and 

 Black Polish fowls, are " good and 

 steady birds to sit." Mr. B. P. Brent 

 informs me that he raised some good 

 sitting hens by crossing Pencilled 

 Hamburg and Polish breeds. A 

 cross-bred bird from a Spanish non- 

 incubating cock and Cochin incu- 

 bating hen is mentioned in the 'Poultry 

 Chronicle,' vol. iii. p. 13, as an "ex- 

 emplary mother." On the other 

 hand, an exceptional case is given in 

 the 'Cottage Gardener,' 1860^ p. 388, 

 of a hen raised from a Spanish cock 

 and black Polish hen which did not 

 incubate. 



