38 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES II 
limbs of the mother and grandmother; so that 
here, notwithstanding a double pentadactyle 
dilution of the blood, the hexadactyle variety had 
the best of it. The same pre-potency of the 
variety was still more markedly exemplified in the 
progeny of two of the other children, Marie and 
George. Marie (whose thumbs only were de- 
formed) gave birth to a boy with six toes, and 
three other normally formed children ; but George, 
who was not quite so pure a pentadactyle, begot, 
first, two girls, each of whom had six fingers and 
toes ; then a girl with six fingers on each hand and 
six toes on the right foot, but only five toes on 
the left; and lastly, a boy with only five fingers 
and toes. In these instances, therefore, the 
variety, as it were, leaped over one generation to 
reproduce itself in full force in the next. Finally, 
the purely pentadactyle André was the father of 
many children, not one of whom age from 
the normal parental type. 
If a variation which approaches the suki of a 
monstrosity can strive thus forcibly to reproduce 
itself, it is not wonderful that less aberrant 
modifications should tend to be preserved even 
more strongly ; and the history of the Ancon sheep 
is, in this respect, particularly instructive. With 
the “’cuteness ” characteristic of their nation, the 
neighbours of the Massachusetts farmer imagined 
it would be an excellent thing if all his sheep 
were imbued with the stay-at-home tendencies 
