II. 



Some Facts of Telegony. 



TELEGONY is a term recently proposed by Professor Weismann 

 to denote the influence which a first sire is beheved by many 

 breeders to have on the offspring of the same mother by a second 

 sire. In his second article on " The All-sufficiency of Natural 

 Selection," which recently appeared in the Cow/^;;/^ora?'_y Revieiv (i), and 

 in his lately-pubhshed book "The Germ-Plasm," Professor Weis- 

 mann states his belief that the evidence for this phenomenon is not 

 sufficiently convincing to establish it as a fact. This, I venture to 

 think, may possibly arise from an insufficient examination of the 

 evidence. Telegony is, no doubt, as Mr. Romanes concludes, a rare 

 occurrence ; and hence it is quite possible for breeders of large 

 experience never to have met with a case, as has happened, according 

 to Professor Weismann, with Settegast, Nathusius, and Ktihn, in 

 Germany. Mr. Tegetmeier also, our greatest authority on poultry, 

 recently stated in the Field that, with fowls, the influence of the 

 last sire is prepotent. Nevertheless, the well-known physiological 

 variability of animals, which is as marked as their differences of 

 form and colour, must surely be taken into account ; and I hereupon 

 proceed to give some cases which seem difficult of explanation on 

 any other than the Telegonic theory. And first, with regard to 

 horses, I should not mention Lord Morton's celebrated mare, as the 

 case has been so often quoted, were it not for the fact that Professor 

 Weismann quotes Settegast to the effect that in the drawings by 

 Agasse of the striped colts borne by the mare to the black Arab after 

 the quagga-hybrid, which are preserved in the Museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, no resemblance to the quagga is perceptible 

 beyond the stripes. 



Darwin (2), who mentions that these colts had also stiff", quagga- 

 like manes, does not, according to Professor Weismann, seem to have 

 known of these drawings ; but Dr. Alexander Harvey (3), whose 

 very interesting pamphlet "On a Curious Effect of Cross Breeding" 

 is referred to by Darwin, quotes therein McGillivray [Aberdeen 

 jfournal, March 28, 1869), who mentions the case of a mare belonging 

 to Sir Gore Ouseley, which, after bearing a hybrid to a Zebra, 

 produced to horses two striped foals, whose portraits and skins are 

 said to be in the Museum above mentioned. Since Dr. Harvey also 



