ae ae a 
40) THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 1 
even when herded with other sheep, it was noted 
that the Ancons kept together. And there is 
every reason to believe that the existence of this — 
breed might have been indefinitely protracted ; 
but the introduction of the Merino sheep, which 
were not only very superior to the Ancons in wool — 
and meat, but quite as quiet and orderly, led to 
the complete neglect of the new breed, so that, in 
1813, Colonel Humphreys found it difficult to 
obtain the specimen, the skeleton of which was 
presented to Sir Joseph Banks. We believe that, 
for many years, no remnant of it has existed in 
the United States. 
Gratio Kelleia was not the progenitor of a race 
of six-fingered men, as Seth Wright’s ram became 
a nation of Ancon sheep, though the tendency of 
the variety to perpetuate itself appears to have 
been fully as strong in the one case as in the 
other. And the reason of the difference is not 
far toseek. Seth Wright took care not to weaken 
the Ancon blood by matching his Ancon ewes 
with any but males of the same variety, while 
Gratio Kelleia’s sons were too far removed from 
the patriarchal times to intermarry with their 
sisters ; and his grand-children seem not to have 
been attracted by their six-fingered cousins. In 
other words, in the one example a race was pro- 
duced, because, for several generations, care was 
taken to select both parents of the breeding stock 
from animals exhibiting a tendency to vary in the 
