Rabaud: Telegony 



399 



has no relation to the supposed phenom- 

 enon. The female does not receive from 

 the male which fecundates her, any- 

 thing which belongs essentially to that 

 male; the constitution of that female 

 does not become in any degree the 

 image of that male, and there is no 

 reason for surprise if the offspring of 

 that female by a second male give no 

 hint of the first male. 



In fact, the question is quite different. 

 Gestation naturally produces in the 

 female a modification which we must 

 suppose to be to some extent permanent. 

 As a consequence, the female which 

 produces a second offspring is no longer 

 the female that produced the first off- 

 spring; whether the two gestations be 

 due to the same male or to two different 

 males, the fetus of the second gestation 

 e\'olves in conditions different from 

 those surrounding the fetus of the first 

 gestation. But it does not undergo in 

 any way the influence of the first male; 

 in reality, what takes places is as if two 

 different females were involved, mated 

 with the same male or with two different 

 males. 



Such is the conclusion to which the 

 experimental facts have logically led us. 

 Can we draw from them any lessons 

 relating to the improvement of breeds, 

 particularly of the breed of mankind? 

 If telegony, in its strict sense, could be 

 considered a fact, the course to be 

 pursued would promptly be indicated: 

 every female impregnated by a male of 

 inferior quality ought to be rejected. 

 But under the circumstances what shall 

 we do? Though a first gestation has 

 certainly modified the female, we are 

 ignorant of the direction of that modi- 

 fication; further, we have no way of 

 finding it out. The quality of the male 



gives no information on this point. 

 Since the change which has taken place 

 is not the passage from the male to the 

 female of the qualities of the male, but 

 the result of exchanges between fetus 

 and mother, this result may be good or 

 bad — eugenically speaking — by reason 

 of conditions which at present we are 

 unable to appreciate. 



FACTOR IS NEGLIGILBE. 



The only line of action possible for us, 

 therefore, is to neglect this factor, being 

 persuaded anyhow that it is really 

 negligible. The change which gestation 

 produces in a female can not be, in 

 normal condition, anything but an 

 insignificant change; the important 

 thing is to reckon with abnormal con- 

 ditions, when a genuine infection is 



produced by infectious germs. 

 * * * 



Telegony is not a mode of heredity. 

 The latter is, in itself, a phenomenon 

 of sufficiently complicated mechanism, 

 without the necessity of adding to its 

 studv parasitical viewpoints which com- 

 plicate it without gain. There are no 

 other progenitors than direct ones; a 

 previous gestation carries with it no 

 predetermined effects; it is only one of 

 the conditions which go to make up 

 the general condition of the female at 

 the time of her second gestation; but 

 that general condition is in no sense the 

 ' ' warehousing ' ' in any way of characters 

 belonging to the first male. It is a 

 result of the continued influence of the 

 environment upon the organism. It is, 

 then, an entirely new condition, and we 

 do not have any means of foreseeing its 

 exact nature. These facts must be 

 borne in mind, whenever the question 

 of hereditv is involved.^ 



* It is customary to connect telegony with xenia. This name is given to the following phenom- 

 enon : when a plant is fecundated by pollen of another species, the resulting seed and fruit ordinarily 

 resemble the seed and fruit which would have been produced by fecundation with pollen of the 

 same species. Now it sometimes happens that the fruit recalls in appearance the fruit of the 

 species which furnished the pollen. But this phenomenon does not seem to be identifiable with 

 the phenomenon of telegony. Admitting that the pollinated ovule exercises an influence upon 

 the tissues of the fruit, it certainly does not exercise such an influence upon subsequent fruits. 

 Besides, there is reason to believe that xenia results from pollen grains going astray outside the 

 ovule and, consequently, that there is an impregnation in the positive sense of the word. 



