Dec. i893. SOME FACTS OF TELEGONY. 437 



mentions Lord Morton's mare, it would seem that Settegast, and not 

 he, has confused two distinct cases here. At any rate, it would be 

 well that these pictures should be re-examined, and their history 

 clearly stated. 



In this same pamphlet McGillivray is the authority for two 

 other curious cases, both occurring in pure horses. In several foals, 

 in the Royal stud at Hampton Court, the progeny of the horse 

 Actaeon, there were unquestionable marks of the horse Colonel, to 

 whom the dams of these foals had been put the previous year. Also 

 a colt, the property of the Earl of Suffield, the son of the horse 

 Laurel, so resembled another horse, Camel, " that it was whispered, 

 nay, even asserted, at Newmarket, that he must have been got by 

 Camel." It was found, however, that all that connected them was 

 that the colt's dam had been put to Camel the previous year. 



I do not think that the case of the onager's foal at the Zoological 

 Gardens, recorded by Mr. Tegetmeier in the Field, in December last, 

 is so unmistakable an evidence of Telegony as Dr. Romanes (4) 

 appears to think. The onager was put to an Abyssinian wild ass, 

 produced a hybrid, and then bore to a male onager a chestnut foal 

 with a white blaze on the forehead ; but as this foal thus resembled 

 neither parent, and in fact exhibited a horse's rather than an ass's 

 marking, the case is surely one of Analogous Variation. 



With respect to the case of Carneri's cattle, alluded to on page 

 385 of " The Germ- Plasm," it is noticeable that Carneri, who, since 

 he kept a herd, had presumably some experience of cattle-breeding, 

 evidently considered the germ-infection theory more reasonable than 

 that of reversion to a previous cross. Professor Wallace (5), in his 

 book on the farm live-stock of Great Britain, cautions breeders 

 against putting a mongrel bull to good cows, as well on this account 

 as for general reasons against keeping bad stock ; and Mr. Bourne 

 assures me that this is a matter of practical consideration with cattle 

 breeders. 



In sheep, besides the interesting instance given by Darwin of 

 some Merino ewes, which after being put to a Merino ram with neck- 

 lappets, bore lambs with this abnormal character to other sires, 

 there is a very remarkable case given by Dr. Harvey, on the authority 

 of Mr. W. M'Combie, of Tilliefour, Aberdeenshire : — 



Six very superior pure-bred black-faced horned ewes, the property 

 of Mr. Harry Shaw, in the parish of Lochiel-Cushnie, in Aberdeen- 

 shire, were put, in the autumn of 1844, some to a Leicester (white-faced 

 and polled), and others to a Southdown (dun-faced- and polled) ram, 

 and produced cross-bred Iambs. In the autumn of 1845 the same 

 ewes were put to a very fine pure black-faced horned ram {i.e., of their 

 own breed). The lambs were all polled and brownish in the face, 

 much to Mr. Shaw's astonishment. In autumn, 1846 the ewes were 

 again put to another very superior ram of their own breed. Again the 

 lambs were mongrels, not showing so much of the alien breeds ab 



