206 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the bull that is to go to the young heifer, as it is well 

 known that the first impregnation will sometimes have an 

 influence upon the progeny got by subsequent impregnations 

 by different males. It is an influence by no means always 

 perceptible ; but it is liable to appear. This caution will 

 apply especially to pure-bred stock, and matters less with 

 lower-bred animals. 



The opinion of Professor Agassiz on this and some other 

 points is presented in my report of 18G6, and subsequent ones. 

 Among the many striking facts that bear upon it, I will 

 stop to allude to only one. The Earl of Morton was desir- 

 ous of obtaining a breed between the horse and the quagga, 

 and selected a young seven-eighths Arabian mare and a fine 

 quagga male, and the produce was a female hybrid. The 

 same mare had afterwards a filly and then a horse-colt by a 

 fine black Arabian horse. Both resembled ihe quagga in the 

 dark lines along the back, and the stripes across the forehead 

 and the bars across the legs. In the fill}' the mane was short, 

 stiff, and upright, like that of the quagga : in the colt it was 

 long, but so stiff as to arch upwards, and hang clear of the 

 sides of the neck. 



But not only the first impregnation, but mental impres- 

 sions received by the female during the period of the oestrum, 

 or heat, will be likely to affect the offspring, and often to a 

 very remarkable degree. A Mr. Mustard of Angus, in Scot- 

 land, had a cow that came in heat Avhile at pasture in a field 

 bounded by one belonging to a neighbor, out of which an ox 

 jumped, and went with the cow till she was brought home 

 to the bull. The ox was white with black spots, and horned. 

 The cow and the bull were not only hornless, but there .was 

 not a horned beast on the place, nor one with any white on it, 

 the polled Angus breed being jet-black. But the calf in the 

 following spring was black-and-white and horned. 



A curious case is related of a Dr. Huoh Smith who was 

 travelling in the country with a favorite female setter, when 

 the bitch became suddenly enamoured with a mongrel cur 

 that followed her till he was obliged, in order to separate 

 them, to shoot the cur. The image of this sudden favorite, 

 however, still haunted the bitch, and for some weeks after 

 she pined excessively, and obtsinately refused intercourse 

 with any other dog. At length she admitted the caresses of 



