E WART'S PENYCUIK EXPERIMENTS 149 



with the result that in the second litter there were grey-and-white 

 as well as grey-and-black young. Again, a female black rat after 

 breeding with a pure white rat produced, to a brown rat, white, 

 brown, and piebald offspring. . . . Had Mr. Pound made a number 

 of control experiments he would doubtless have discovered that 

 black female rats sometimes yield to a brown rat white, brown, 

 and piebald offspring, without having been first mated with a white 

 rat, and that grey doe rabbits often produce to a black buck grey- 

 and-white as well as grey-and-black young." 



Experiments on rats and rabbits made by Dr. Bond {^vans, 

 Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, vol. v. October, 1899) 

 yielded no results which could not be readily interpreted as due to 

 reversion and other forms of variation. 



Birds. — A case of supposed telegony in birds is referred to by 

 Darwin (1868, vol. i, p. 405 ) : "A careful observer, Dr. Chapuis, 

 states [Le Pigeon Voyageur Beige, 1865, p. 59) that with pigeons 

 the influence of a first male sometimes makes itself perceived in 

 the succeeding broods ; but this statement, before it can be fully 

 trusted, requires confirmation." Mr. Frank Finn, in a paper 

 entitled " Some Facts of Telegony " {Natural Science, iii., 1893, 

 pp. 436-40), cites a number of cases which seem to him to 

 afford evidence of telegonic phenomena in birds, but they are not 

 convincing. 



From the above citations it appears that the evidence of the 

 occurrence of telegony is in great part, at least, of the same un- 

 satisfactory character as that adduced in favour of use-inheritance 

 — largely anecdotal, impressionist, and uncriticised. The need for 

 careful experiments like those begun by Prof. Ewart (1896) is obvious. 



§ 4. Ewart's Penycuik Experiments. 



The position of affairs being that a number of great authorities 

 — e.g. Darwin and Spencer — had expressed their behef in the 

 occurrence of telegony, and that a number of equally competent 

 authorities had expressed themselves extremely sceptical on 

 the subject, Prof. Ewart resolved on definite experiment — the 

 only secure path. 



In general terms, he made a number of experiments likely 



