Claypole.] 1^^ [April 1, 



In the consideration of this subject we must bear in mind that to obtain 

 evidence from wild animals is difficult, because they are not under our 

 supervision. Hence it is necessary in most instances to quote facts from 

 animals kept in domestication. But abundance of cases have been 

 recorded to show that similar prejudicial variation occurs among animals 

 in the wild state. 



4. Variation in form. — Under this head I maj^ quote the well-known 

 case of the Ancon or otter sheep of Mass., " which originated in 1791 with 

 a single specimen having short crooked legs and a long back like a turn- 

 spit dog." This change in a natural state would hare been extremely 

 prejudicial to so active an animal. But under human control the very de- 

 fect was, for a time, a convenience to the farmer, who found that these 

 sheep could not leap over his fences. Hence he preserved and bred them. 

 But the Merino superseded the Ancon, and without the preserving care of 

 man the latter soon disappeared, as it would have done much earlier in a 

 state of nature. 



The once well-known turnspit dog supplies another case in point. 



A friend of the writer once had a kitten which was born without any 

 hind legs — a defect which had occurred in several litters dropped by tlie 

 same cat. It lived for some years to my knowledge, and may be living 

 still. When I last saw it it was nearlj^ or quite full grown. Its difficulty 

 of motion was great. Yet T have seen it get up on a chair, and when it 

 walked it threw up its hind quarters and moved with a series of jumps, 

 much as a boy moves when walking on his hands with his feet in the air. 

 Without the care of man so defective an animal must soon have starved 

 for want of locomotive power. 



From the above instances the transition is slight to that of monsters. 

 Indeed the line between these and malformation so great as that last 

 mentioned is not easily drawn. Nor do I care to insist on the distinction. 

 The only obvious difference between them lies in the transmission or 

 arrest of the defect. In most cases malformation so serious necessarily 

 ends with the individual. 



Some may feel unwilling to admit the pertinence of monsters to the 

 present argument. But they cannot logicall}^ be excluded. They are 

 only the extreme cases in which the variation is so prejudicial that life is 

 usually short and transmission impossible. No department of either the 

 animal or the vegetable kingdom is free from the occasional appearance of 

 these usually inexplicable forms. Five-legged calves, sheep with two 

 tails, two-headed fowls and other such cases of malformation are often 

 announced. And after making all due allowance for mere external abnor- 

 mality there remain enough instances certified by anatomical demonstration 

 to show that the birth of such monsters is by no means rare.* 



"The Museum of Michigan University contains a double-headed milk 



* Abundant evidence tliat the human species is not less liable than others to this kind 

 of variation may be seen on the shelves of ahuost any medical museum and especially 

 on those of the Royal College of Surgeons of Loudon. 



