EwAKT — Variation : Germinal and Environmental. 365 



semi-torpid coiiditioD. As their dam neither attempted to protect nor suckle them, 

 they all died during the first day, and were added to my museum. This peculiar 

 behaviour of the doe led me to surmise that something unusual might happen. I 

 find I wrote in the stud book on the 7th October : — " Will this grey doe have 

 another lot of young about the 16th October." On the 11th October the doe 

 proceeded to make a nest, but before the lining of hair was added, three more 

 young were born, exactly a week after the first lot, i.e. on the 14th of October. 

 They were slightly smaller than the first litter, and, like the first, they soon 

 died, their dam never attempting to suckle them. The chief point of interest 

 about the last batch of young is, that they varied in colour; had they survived, 

 one would have been white, one probably blue or silver- grey, and one like a 

 wild rabbit. 



When this grey doe had sufficiently recovered her equilibrium, she was again 

 put to the Angora buck, and on the 27tla December she had six young, two white 

 — identical with the two white of her fLrst litter— and four grey, two of them with 

 patches of white. 



Service was again postponed, with the result that this grey doe a second time 

 produced to the Angora buck grey young like herself. In further support of the 

 view that, when the sperms are introduced some tiuie before ovulation, the young 

 are likely to take after the buck, I may mention, that in tlie case of a white rabbit 

 served by a grey half -wild buck thirty-eight days before she littered, the offspring 

 exactly resembled the buck — served by the same buck at the normal time, the 

 offspring were of various colours. 



From these and other experiments it appears — (1) that when a doe rabbit is 

 served one or more days before the normal time, the young resemble the buck ; 

 (2) that when insemination is delayed, the young are likely to resemble the 

 doe ; and (3) that when insemination takes place at the usual time, some of the 

 young take after the doe, some after the buck, while others may differ from both 

 parents and resemble some of the less remote ancestoi-s ; and (4) that in the 

 rabbit spermatozoa retain their potency several days after they reach the fallopian 

 tube. 



In support of the view that the members of the first litter of the grey doe were 

 white like the sire, while the third litter consisted of dark young like the dam and 

 her half-wild sire, the extremely important results obtained by Mr. H. M. Vernon 

 with echinoderms may be cited. It will be remembered that Vernon, on crossing 

 Spheerechinus females with Strongylocentrotus males, found that, in summer, 

 when Strongylocentrotus have but small quantities of ripe sexual products, the 

 majority of the hybrids " were of an almost pure Spheerechinus type, only a third 

 or less of them being of an intermediate or Strongylocentrotus type," but that, 

 '' as the maturitij of the Strongylocentrotus sperm increases, it is able to transmute first 



