HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION AND VARIATION. 93 



six-fingered and six-toed like their grandfather ; the 

 fourth boy had only five fingers and five toes. George 

 had only four children : there were two girls with six 

 fingers and six toes ; there was one girl with six fingers 

 and five toes on the right side, and five fingers and five 

 toes on the left side, so that she was half and half. 

 The last, a boy, had five fingers and five toes. The 

 third, Andre, you will recollect, was perfectly well- 

 formed, and he had many children whose hands and 

 feet were all regularly developed. Marie, the last, 

 who, of course, married a man who had only five fin- 

 gers, had four children : the first, a boy, was born with 

 six toes, but the other three were normal. 



Now observe what very extraordinary phenomena 

 are presented here. You have an accidental variation 

 arising from what you may call a monstrosity ; you 

 have that monstrosity tendency or variation diluted in 

 the first instance by an admixture with a female of 

 normal construction, and you would naturally expect 

 that, in the results of such an union, the monstrosity, 

 if repeated, would be in equal proportion with the 

 normal type; that is to say, that the children would 

 be half and half, some taking the peculiarity of the 

 father, and the others being of the purely normal type 

 of the mother ; but you see we have a great prepon- 

 derance of the abnormal type. "Well, this comes to be 

 mixed once more with the pure, the normal type, and 

 the abnormal is again produced in large proportion, 

 notwithstanding the second dilution. Now what would 

 have happened if these abnormal types had intermar- 

 ried with each other ; that is to say, suppose the two 

 boys of Salvator had taken it into their heads to marry 

 their first cousins, the two first girls of George, their 



