430 THE SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OF MUTILATIONS. 



organism, of which the purpose is to remove the tail. On the 

 contrary, this instance shows very clearly that the appearance of 

 a development guided in a certain direction may be produced 

 without the existence of any motive developmental force. 



The disposition of the tail to become rudimentary, in cats and 

 dogs, may be explained in the simplest way, by the process which 

 I have formerly called panmixia. The tail is now of hardly any 

 use to these animals ; and neither dog nor cat would perish because 

 they possessed only an incomplete tail. Hence natural selection 

 does not now exercise any influence over these parts, and an occa- 

 sional reduction is no longer eliminated by the early destruction 

 of its possessor : therefore such reduction may be transmitted to 

 the offspring. 



The race of tailless foxes which, according to Settegast, existed 

 during the present century on the hunting-grounds of Prince 

 Wilhelm zu Solms-Braunfels, very soon disappeared ; while cats 

 and dogs with rudimentary tails have been preserved in many 

 cases. Such results are to be expected, because in these domesticated 

 animals the absence of the tail did not cause any inferiority in the 

 struggle for existence. 



But these facts appear to me to be remarkable in another 

 direction. I previously mentioned the tailless race of Manx cats. 

 Tradition does not tell us how it happened that the descendants of 

 the first tailless cat in the Isle of Man were able to increase and 

 spread in such a manner as to form the dominant race in the 

 island. But we can easily imagine how it happened, when we 

 learn that tailless cats are especially prized 1 in Japan, because 

 people think that they are better mousers. Every one in Japan 

 wishes to possess a tailless cat, and people even cut off the tails of 

 normal cats when they cannot obtain those with congenital rudi- 

 mentary tails, because they believe that cats become better mousers 

 in consequence of taillessness. In Waldkirch the sanie account of 

 the superiority of tailless cats is curiously enough also found. We 

 thus see how a slight but striking variation may at once cause an 

 energetic process of artificial selection, which helps this variation to 

 predominance : a hint for us to be careful in passing judgment upon 



1 See the interesting remarks by Doderlein on this point, which Dr. Ischikawa of 

 Japan tells me are quite correct. Doderlein, ' Ueber schwanzlose Katzen,' Zool. An- 

 zeiger, vol. x. Nov. 1887, No. 265. 



