1902 Telegony in Dogs 63 



ducks, hens, pigeons, tS:c. — and I have hopelessly failed, as 

 has every single experimenter who has tried to produce the 

 phenomenon." ^ He further says, what is more to the point, 

 that on making inquiries at home and abroad — on the 

 Continent and in America — he heard of an enormous 

 number of so-called cases of infection, but all such cases 

 " would not bear a critical inspection for a moment." Yet 

 Millais, like so many others, was unable to shake himself 

 quite free from the telegony superstition. He had no 

 difficulty in detecting flaws in the evidence submitted by 

 the ordinary unscientific fancier, but he failed to see in 

 a case that came under his own observation that the 

 evidence in support of infection was equally faulty. This 

 was the case of a fox-terrier which because of its spots was 

 said to throw back to a Dalmatian — a previous mate of the 

 terrier's dam. Millais says of this case, " I have not the 

 slightest doubt that in this fox-terrier we have a perfectly 

 authentic instance of telegony " ; ^ hence he came to the 

 conclusion that infection did occur, but was " exceedingly 

 rare, and therefore abnormal." 



That the fox-terrier in question was spotted is not for a 

 moment questioned, but that it owed its spots to a previous 

 Dalmatian sire is more than doubtful. In the first place, 

 when a Dalmatian is crossed the offspring are more liable to 

 be marked with large blotches than small round spots ; and 

 in the second place, fox-terriers, like setters and certain 

 other breeds in which there is neither an actual nor an 

 imaginary (telegonous) Dalmatian in the ancestry, often 

 enough present Dalmatian-like spots. Some years ago I 

 crossed a sable-and-white collie with a Dalmatian. The 

 three pups obtained in no way suggested the Dalmatian sire. 

 The body colour was of a yellowish tint, and each pup was 

 marked with four or five large reddish blotches such as 

 commonly occur in foxhounds. Only once in half-bred 

 Dalmatians did I obtain spots, and in this case they were 

 small and indistinct. I may hence say of Millais' single 

 instance of infection that (like the enormous number of so- 



1 Two Problems of Reproduction, " Our Dogs " Publishing Co., Manchester, 

 p. 18. 



- Two Problems of Reproduction, p. 20, 



