334 CHARLES R. STOCKARD AND A. L. JOHNSON 



the derma] coat. An animal is handicapped by this condition. 

 The drag of the skin often misplaces the opening of the eye- 

 lids and in some cases obscures the vision. The flews or 

 upper lips are so excessive and pendulous as to inconvenience 

 the dog when feeding, and the unusually thick, hanging skin 

 makes locomotion heavy and cumbersome. The skin is ex- 

 cessive in thickness, as well as too large in area, and may 

 be fully one centimeter thick over the dorsum of the neck. 



This disharmony between skin area and body size, although 

 differing in many ways from the misfit between upper and 

 lower jaws which we have previously discussed, is in some 

 respects a comparable structural mixup resulting from hybrid 

 confusion of genetic qualities. 



We may recall another disharmony of similar type, that 

 of leg length in the F L , hybrids between the short legged 

 dachshund and the slender legged Brussels griffon. Some of 

 these IT 2 animals have disproportionately long hind extremi- 

 ties which raise the level of the hips high above the level 

 of the shoulders. Referring to plate 65 (p. 340) we see that 

 the animal in figure 1 has a partially expressed rabbit-like 

 disproportion between the front and hind legs, while the 

 sister (fig. 2) shows the proper balance in extremity length. 



In other sections of this study we have discussed a number 

 of different structurally disharmonious conditions, such as 

 the skin overgrowth in several giant breeds, inadequate dental 

 accommodation in the short jawed breeds, inadequacy of the 

 optic fossa to accommodate the eyeball in the flat faced 

 Brussels griffon and Pekingese and so on. The one character 

 common to all these breeds and hybrids in which structural 

 misfits occur is an abnormality of the pituitary gland. Such 

 an array of growth disharmonies in association with pituitary 

 abnormality makes it seem highly probable that the pituitary 

 secret ions are largely concerned with the normal regulation 

 and adjustment of growth among the organ systems and 

 bodily parts. Tt should be remembered that many of these 

 disharmonious arrangements are strictly inherited in verv 



