EwART — Variation : Germinal and Environmental. 373 



Further experiments may, liowever, show that, by special treatment, the pre- 

 potency of even wild rabbits, rats, &c., and also of Zygopetalum and other plants, 

 can be reduced, if not for a time destroyed. Highly specialized characters are but 

 rarely transmitted to cross-bred offspring. A genius, if a sport, may, like a spotted 

 pony, transmit his special traits, even if he unites himself with an alien distin- 

 guished only for mediocrity, but this rarely happens. When two richly decorated 

 varieties or species are crossed, the special features are often either lost or greatly 

 modified, as, for example, when pheasants are intercrossed. A similar result follows 

 the crossing of a decorated with a plain or whole coloui-ed variety or species, even 

 when the plain form lias sprung from richly-coloured ancestors. Evidence of this 

 we often have when pheasants and fowls are crossed, and when the zebra is bred 

 with the horse or ass, or a spotted dog is mated with a wolf. 



The pheasant-fowl hybrid may approach the pheasant, but the rich colouring 

 is never fully realized, while the zebra seems quite incapable of endowing his 

 hybrid offspring with his light body-colour — or with his own particular pattern of 

 stripes. The same, though to a less extent, is true of lion-tiger crosses, and crosses 

 between differently coloured fowls, pigeons, rabbits, guinea pigs, &c. The expla- 

 nation doubtless is, that the highly specialized traits ma}^ have been recently 

 acquired (partly owing to environmental stimuli), and may be more of the nature of 

 decorations than life-saving characters. This implies that, unless they happen to 

 be sports, they will be unstable and only capable of fully reproducing themselves 

 if represented by at least a few corresponding vital units in the germ-cell of the 

 less specialized parent. 



3. Some of the offspring may resemble one of the parents, some the other. This 

 is well illustrated by a litter of four kittens, two of which are pure white, like the 

 sire, two are tabby, coloured like the dam. In litters of puppies, both parents are 

 often very faithfully reproduced. Recently, in a cross-bred family having a small 

 black and tan spaniel as the dam and a lemon and white pointer as the sire, there 

 were both pointer and spaniel-like pups — one of the former, now clearly double the 

 size of his dam, in make and colour closely resembles his sire. 



In a litter of rabbits between a half-bred wild buck and a doe, with faint 

 Himalaya markings, one most accurately in make, colour, &c., copies the doe, 

 another is, if anything, more like a wild rabbit than the buck. Other examj^les 

 might be given from amongst sheep and pigs, mice, and pigeons. In these cases the 

 germ-cells seem to be so evenly balanced that very little difference in their vigour, 

 ripeness, or " staleness " probably settles the matter one way or the other. But the 

 chief interest of the germ-plasm refusing to blend is this, that it gives a new variety 

 a chance of establishing itself. A new variety may (1) establish itself if it is 

 capable of multiplying more rapidly than the old variety, and is at the same time 

 equally well adapted for its surroundings ; or (2) if it is better adapted for the 



