•8o NATURAL SCIENCE. Febrdary, 



Telegony Again. 



Some time ago in our own columns (Natural Science, vol. iii., p. 

 436), Mr. Frank Finn brought together all recorded cases he could 

 find, of which the most probable explanation appeared to be the 

 occurrence of telegony. The collation was interesting and useful ; 

 but the problem was left very much in its previous condition. The 

 majority of breeders are assured that the influence of an earlier mate 

 is frequently seen in the progeny of a mother to a second mate ; they 

 take the greatest care to avoid accidents of this kind, believing that a 

 pure-bred dam is spoiled for stock purposes if she has been crossed by 

 a mongrel or hybridised. On the other hand many great breeders, 

 and, perhaps, the majority of scientific naturalists, decline to admit 

 the existence of any evidence for telegony, while some even deny the 

 possibility of its occurrence. It is, of course, impossible to prove a 

 negative, but the scientifically conducted experiments for which all 

 naturalists must wish, have not yet been made on any satisfactory 

 scale. Much is to be hoped from Professor Cossar Ewart's experi- 

 mental stud. As most of our readers are aware. Professor Ewart 

 succeeded last year in effecting a cross between a zebra stallion and 

 Mulatto, a West Highland pony. The hybrid is strongly marked 

 with stripes, although these differ from the stripes of the sire. Since 

 .the experiments are to be continued for some time, definite results 

 may be looked for. The first interesting event that is expected is the 

 birth of another foal from the same dam, the progeny of a horse. If 

 this occur without mishap, telegonic influence of the zebra will be 

 looked for. 



In the meantime, Mr. Karl Pearson has presented to the 

 Royal Society an investigation into telegony from another point of 

 view. It occurred to him that if a telegonic influence existed, there 

 might be a closer correlation between the younger children of a family 

 and their father, and a lesser correlation between the younger 

 children and their mother, than existed in the case of the other 

 children. n fact, it might be an accumulating influence on the body 

 of the mother by the father. With this possibility in view, he 

 examined a large series of family statistics, and found that so far as 

 stature was concerned, the result was negative : that there was " no 

 evidence whatever of a steady telegonic influence of the male upon the 

 female among mankind." 



A third recent discussion of telegony, is that already reported by 

 us as having occurred at the meeting of the Zoological Society on 

 November 27th, when Mr. Chalmers Mitchell exhibited on behalf of 

 Mr. Oswald H. Latter, a fox-terrier puppy whose sire was a fox-terrier 

 and whose dam was a fox-terrier that had thrown a litter to a 

 dachshund in the preceding season. There was no question that the 

 puppy was a disgrace to well-bred parents, but Sir Everett Millais, 

 who himself has conducted a large series of experiments, was convinced 

 that it was a case of reversion to the beagle strain, which is part of 



