RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS. 217 



dam, and are of precisely the same color. In litters 

 of pigs got by the improved boars from country sows, 

 the color of the improved race also predominates in a 

 similar manner. ... 



" The writer's brother was lately in possession of 

 well-bred pigs, the most striking characteristic of 

 which was a short, pricked ear. The produce of these 

 with the large pendent-eared swine of North Wales 

 was invariably similar in the ear to the higher-bred 

 animal, whether male or female." 1 The number of 

 cases in which the offspring resembles the male are 

 undoubtedly more numerous than the cases of resem- 

 blance to the female, for the obvious reason that the 

 males selected for breeding are, as a rule, more highly 

 bred than the females with which they are coupled, 

 and they have also more numerous offspring from 

 which the cases of resemblance are selected. 



Those who overlook this fact, as is evidently the 

 case with Mr. Boswell, fall into the error of attribut- 

 ing the greater number of observed resemblances of 

 offspring to the male parent to a predominating influ- 

 ence of sex. 



The importance of securing males of the best 

 quality, that from their superior breeding will be 

 likely to be prepotent in the transmission of their 

 characteristics, cannot be too strongly urged as one of 

 the readiest means of improvement. 



. " It is generally admitted as a fact proved, that in 

 the ox, horse, and other domestic animals, the purer 

 or less mixed the breed is, there is the greater proba- 

 bility of its transmitting to the offspring the "qualities 



1 " Transactions of the Highland Agricultural Society," vol. L, p. 41. 



