170 THE BREEDING OF ANIMALS 



in British and American live-stock journals .developed 

 the fact that telegony is not as generally believed among 

 breeders of the present day as has been generally reported. 

 Sir Everett Millais, as the result of over fifty experiments 

 with mammals and birds, found no conclusive evidence 

 of infection. 



Evidences of telegony, if it exists at all, ought to be 

 easily collected in those regions where the production of 

 mules is common. Darwin says, 1 "It is worthy of note 

 that farmers in South Brazil (as I hear from Fritz Miiller) 

 and at the Cape of Good Hope (as I have heard from two 

 trustworthy correspondents) are convinced that mares 

 which have once borne mules when subsequently put to 

 horses are extremely liable to produce colts striped like 

 a mule." 



These conclusions are not supported by Baron de 

 Parana, 1 who reports, " I have many relatives and friends 

 who have large establishments for the rearing of mules 

 where they obtain 400 to 1000 mules in a year. In all 

 these establishments, after two or three crossings of the 

 mare and ass, the breeders cause the mare to be put to a 

 horse because they believe that unless the mares are 

 changed after producing three mules they become sterile. 

 In all these establishments a pure-bred foal has never 

 been produced resembling either an ass or a mule." 



160. Telegony and mule hybrids. In the horse- 

 breeding districts of Missouri, large numbers of mules 

 are produced annually. Many of the mares which have 

 produced one or more mules are later bred to stallions 

 and thus become the dams of horse foals. The jack 

 and the stallion differ so widely in many important 

 particulars that any marked tendency of horse foals to 



1 Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 1910, p. 123. 



