NATURAL HISTORY. 



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has the peculiarity 



Jonathan; David, who is dead, 

 had nothing of the father's mark, 

 but 



Jonathan 

 complete. 



The sixth, Zerah Colburn, the 

 extraordinary calculating boy, is 

 marked like his father, as before 

 described. 



The seventh, Mary Colburn, is 

 naturally formed. 



The eighth and last child, Enas 

 Colburn, is also exempt from the 

 father's peculiarity. 



Besides the persons I have men- 

 tioned, this hereditarjf redundance 

 of limbs has been attached to the 

 little fingers and to the little toes 

 of several of the ancestors of the 

 family. The mother of Abiah Col- 

 burn brought the peculiarity into 

 his family. Her maiden name was 

 Abigail Green : she, however, had 

 not the extra finger on one of her 

 hands ; the other hand and her 

 feet were similarly marked with 

 those of her son Abiah. 



David Colburn, the father of 

 Abiah, had no peculiarity. By his 

 marraige with Abigail Green, he 

 had three sons and one daughter. 

 Two of these sons and the daughter 

 were fully marked in all the limbs ; 

 the oVhcr son had one hand and 

 one foot naturailj' formed. 



Abigail Green inherited these 

 supernumerarj' limbs from her mo- 

 ther, whose maiden name was 

 — — — Kendall, and she had five 

 fingers and a thumb upon each 

 hand, and six toes on each foot. 



The marriage of —— Kendall 



with Mr. Green produced 



eleven children, whom Abiah Col- 

 burn's mother, who was one of the 

 eleven, reports to have been all 

 completely marked : but the pre- 

 sent family are unacquainted with 



the history of theother ten branches, 

 and they do not possess any know- 

 ledge of their ancestors beyond 

 Kendall, the great grand- 

 mother of Zerah Colburn. 



Numerous examples of the he- 

 reditary propagation of peculiarities 

 have been recorded : all family re- 

 semblances, indeed, however tri- 

 fling they may appear to a common 

 observer, are interesting to the phy- 

 siologist, and equally curious; 

 though not so rare as those describ-' 

 ed in the preceding history. In 

 every department of animal nature, 

 accumulation of facts must always 

 be desirable, that more reasonable 

 inductions may be established con- 

 cerning the laws which direct tlii» 

 interesting part of creation : atxi 

 it might be attended with the 

 most important consequences, if 

 discovery could be made of the re- 

 lative influence of the male and 

 female sex in the propagation of 

 peculiarities, and the course and 

 extent of hereditary character could 

 be ascertained, both as it affects 

 the human race in their moral and 

 physical capacities, and as it go- 

 verns the creatures which are sub- 

 dued for civiHzed uses. Nor is it 

 altogether vain to expect that more 

 profound views and more applica- 

 ble facts await the researches of 

 men, who have as yet only begun 

 to explore this branch of natural 

 history, by subjecting it to physi- 

 cnl rules. 



Though the causes which govern 

 the production of organic monstro- 

 sities, or which direct the heredi- 

 tary continuance of them, may 

 for ever remain unknown, it still 

 seems desirable to ascertain the 

 variety of those deviations, and to 

 mark the course they take, where 

 they branch out ane.v, and where 



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