Male and Female Far ents on their ^Offspring. . 34 9C 



experience compels me wholly to reject the infererjce that 

 he has drawn respecting the advantages of propagating 

 from large, in preference lo small females. 



Nature has given to the offspring of many animals (those 

 of the sheep, the cow, and the mare, afford fatniliar ex- 

 amples) the p;)w-er, at an ^ariy age, to accotnpany their 

 parents in flight; and the legs. of such animals are very 

 Dearly of the same length, at the birth, as when they have 

 attained their perfect growth. When the female parent is 

 large, and the f<jetus consequently so, the offspring will be 

 large al its birth, in proportion to the bulk it will ultimately 

 attain, and its legs will thence be long com|)aratively with 

 the depth of the chest and shoulders. When, on the cotii^ 

 t-rary, the female is small, and the foetus so, at th-e birtfi, 

 the length of the legs of the young animal will be short 

 comparatively with the depth of its chest and shoulders; 

 and an animal in the latter form will be greatly preferable, 

 either for the purposes of labour, or of food (o mankind. 

 I have seen this difference in the influence of the male and 

 fitmale parent, on the offspring, very strikingly exemplified, 

 in the result of an attempt to obtain very large mules from 

 the male ass and the mare. The largest females, that 

 could be procured, were selected, and the forms of the off- 

 >«pring, at the birth, were perfectly consistent with the theory 

 of Mr. Cline; they were remarkably large : and 1 observed, 

 that the length of their legs, when they were only a few 

 days old, very nearly equalled that of the legs of their fe- 

 male parents. I examined the same animals when five 

 years old, and in the depth of their chests and shoulders 

 they very little exceeded their male parent; and they were 

 consequently of little or «o value ; whilst other mules, 

 which were obtained from the same male parent (a Spanish 

 ass), but from mares of small stature, were perfectly well 

 proportioned. 1 have never seen the little mule, which is 

 uropagated from the female ass and the hor^e, nor even a 

 delineation or description of its form ; but I do not enter- 

 tain any doubt that its chest and shoulders are excessively 

 deep anu strong, conjparatively with the length of its Icgsf 

 and that, on account of this peculiarity in its furm, it has 

 been so frequently shown on the Continent, under the^ 

 liame of a jumart, as the pretended offspring of the marfe) 

 and the bull. "1 . h 



In opposing the theory advanced by Mr. Cline, it is not 

 by any means my intention to enter the lists with him, as 

 4 physiologist ; but, as a farmer and breeder of animals of 

 different species, I have probably liad many advantages, 



3 which 



